The annual North East Europe Regional Rounds of Price Media Law Moot Court have started today. It is hosted by CEDEM in partnership with National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and Kyiv-Mohyla Moot Court Society. This is the first time this competition is organized in Ukraine. Current activity is supported by  Swedish Government.

Moot court is an international competition for lawyers, that simulates a court hearing, where participants preparing written submissions and then present them as oral arguments.

Form 21st to 23d December 7 teams from Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus will compete for possibility to go to University of Oxford.

Taras Shevchenko, CEDEM director, and Alina Pravdychenko, head of educational projects in Media Law Institute, said that in 2008 it was just 7 teams in final. Today we have 7 teams in Regional Round.

“All participants already can proud of them. The main purpose of this competition is to get unique experience and enjoyment”, – said Paolo Cavalieri, PhD in International Law and Economics, representative University of Edinburgh, judge of the competition.

This year the participants are faced with the case of a blogger, accused of incitement to violence and extremist speech. The teams will also argue about the liability of the social media service and its responsibility for takedowns of harmful content.

In addition to the competition, participants will also attend professional lectures in media law.