Skip to content

NTU team secures “Best Mediation Advocacy” award at the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition 2021

A team of students from Nottingham Law School represented the university at the 16th ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition.

Law Courtroom

From 6-9 February 2021 a team of four students from Nottingham Law School represented the university at the 16th ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition. The team consisted of final year LLB students Blessing Iheanacho-Emenike, Beth Eady and Giorgia Zollino as well as a second year LLB student Jorge Kemp. Andrii Zharikov and Megan Shirley acted as coaches for the team.

The students started their initial preparations from early December. As Jorge recollects: “There was a lot of work to do in the build up to the competition itself: organising meetings for preparation, drafting mediation plans, distributing roles, developing strategies and practising our opening statements”. Beth admits that due to the absence of any prior experience of this kind of competition she “definitely experienced some nerves when learning that we would be meeting mediators, students and lawyers from across the world”. Nonetheless, as Giorgia puts it: “when the time finally arrived, we felt prepared and excited to present what we had planned as a team”.

ICC Mediation Competition web screenshot students

The team performed strongly in four rounds of complex commercial dispute scenarios where they competed against Loyola Law School (USA), Wuhan University (China), Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (Sri Lanka) and the University of Sao Paolo (Brazil). Each mediation session was different from the previous one and represented unique challenges for the students. At the same time, as Giorgia rightly states, “after each successful scenario was presented, we were all very proud of each other and the coaches provided great feedback to take onto the next scenarios; therefore, each performance felt stronger than the last”.

Despite not progressing to the final rounds of the competition, the judges recognised the effectiveness of the mediation skills and persuasive performance showed by the Nottingham Trent University team. This resulted in the prestigious award of “Best Mediation Advocacy” being presented to our team.

The students are very happy that all their efforts and hard work were recognised by the judges.

The overall participation in the competition was described by our students as “absolutely incredible”, “highly enriching” and “a gratifying experience”.  All members of the team enjoyed the sense of team spirit and camaraderie throughout the competition, so when the last scenario was finally over the team “felt relieved, but slightly disappointed that the competition went by so fast”. All team members are grateful for the support of Nottingham Law School and encourage fellow students to take part in future similar competitions.

Published on 17 February 2021
  • Subject area: Law, criminology and justice
  • Category: Nottingham Law School