Moot Court Story

2024 GROMADA Moot Court Story

Discover how each and every one can contribute to legal assessments of war-affected areas through the means of citizen science!

In August 2024, the GROMADA project hosted an interdisciplinary and international summer school in Hamburg on “Civic Participation in Environmental Recovery during and after the War in Ukraine”. The week-long summer school led to the GROMADA Moot Court - a simulated court proceeding - where the participants from ten countries, including Ukraine, took on the role of state representatives to argue three claims on environmental damages in Ukraine against the Russian Federation.

In three “claims” brought forward to the Chamber for Environmental Matters of the International Court of Justice, the participants acting as legal counsels assessed Russian and Ukrainian activities relating to the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, the military activities in the vicinity of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and, more generally, ecocide as an international crime.

Although the Chamber for Environmental Matters of the International Court of Justice, established in 1993 to meet the growing global challenges in the field of environmental protection, does in fact exist, no state has ever requested that a case be dealt with by it (so far). In the GROMADA Moot Court, the Chamber is called into action, ruling on its first case presented below.

Main focus points

Public International Law

Public international law governs the relations between states. It includes written treaties, unwritten customary law, and general principles and rules recognized by states (cf. Art. 38(1) ICJ Statute). The GROMADA Moot Court addressed the following sub-areas of public international law: human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and international environmental law.

Environmental Citizen Science

Environmental citizen science refers to activities in which non-professional participants contribute to data collection and data analysis to advance scientific research in the environmental field. Public participation through citizen science can lead to new findings in areas such as environmental protection and/or public health. It also promotes awareness and education on scientific issues.

Civic Environmental Monitoring

Civic environmental monitoring is using monitoring devices (e.g., a sensor) or bare senses (e.g., smell) by ordinary people to detect environmental issues. It may not entail a scientific component (e.g., pure observations) and thus differs from citizen science, which always entails a scientific process.

The 3 Claims of the GROMADA Moot Court

Engage with the claims based on real-case scenarios of the conflict brought forward by the states, which shed light on major environmental damages related to the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Claim 1: Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam
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Claim 2: Military Activities in the Vicinity of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
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Claim 3: Crime of Ecocide
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If you want to learn more about the Russo-Ukrainian-War and related legal questions, check out this multimedia exhibition “The Russia-Ukraine Conflict: A Legal Assessment” by students of the University of Hamburg.

Besides, you can listen to excerpts of the proceeding on the website of the news podcast Deutschlandfunk which reported on the Moot Court (mainly in German).

Facts

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Judges

Summer School organisers

The University of Hamburg has organized the GROMADA Summer School and Moot Court as part of Working Package 3 of the GROMADA Project. 

Without the support of all GROMADA partners, this activity would not have been possible!

Dr. Anne Dienelt University of Hamburg
Isabelle-Catherine Nebe University of Hamburg
Leah Mathiesen University of Hamburg

Judges

Dr. Britta Sjöstedt is a senior lecturer in environmental law at the Faculty of Law at Lund University, Sweden. She is also a co-founder of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association. She is working mainly with the law of armed conflict, international environmental law, and issues relating to fragmentation of international law. Her research project revolves around questions on protecting the environment during armed conflict and how to apply the law of different branches of international law with overlapping scopes.

Prof. Dr. Sigrid Boysen, judge at the Hamburg Constitutional Court since November 2022, is a professor of public law, EU law and public international law at Helmut-Schmidt-Universität / University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg. Her research focuses on international law with a particular focus on the theory of international law, the law of natural resources, environmental justice, international environmental and economic law, and constitutional law.

Dr. Anne Dienelt, maître en droit (Aix-en-Provence), works as a senior research fellow and lecturer (Akadem. Rätin a. Z.) at the University of Hamburg. As part of her habilitation, she currently researches questions of resilience in law in light of crises, such as climate change or pandemics. She has completed her doctorate in Public International Law on “Armed Conflicts and the Environment”, with particular interests in international humanitarian law and human rights law.

Impressions from the Moot Court

Margot Wallström

We are very grateful to Margot Wallström, co-chair of the High-Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War and former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden endorses the GROMADA Moot Court. Listen to her thoughts on the significance of the Moot Court with regard to the Russian war’s effects on the environment.

Design by Claire Fragiadaki, Web2Learn