International Moot Court Competition Law & Religion
The reasons and the roots of a choice
Since its establishment, Fondazione Marcianum has been attracting the interest of international professors, researchers and students who have actively taken part to the different initiatives and have collaborated in a profitable way. It is worth mentioning the activity of ASSET during the period 2009 -2012, when a great number of activities, such as conferences and international summer schools took place - related to distinct research projects - and whose proceedings were published in a series of books bearing the same name.
Among the priorities of the Marcianum, there is the need to consolidate the relationship with the city of Venice from a scientific, cultural and social perspective. As a matter of fact, Marcianum has developed in the recent years a fruitful cooperation especially with the University of Ca' Foscari. A cooperation bringing to the creation of an inter-university PhD program on Law, Market and Person. Inside the program, Marcianum supports research projects focused on social rights, human rights and religious freedom. Marcianum keeps to be interested in contributing to develop the role of Venice as a center of communication and confrontation among different cultures.
The competition and its Goals
In 2015 the Fondazione Marcianum organized the first edition of the Law & Religion Moot Court Competition with the aim to offer law students a real laboratory to reflect upon the social and the legal field.
The goal of the Law & Religion Moot Court Competition is to bring together in Venice, for a limited period of time and in an intensive way a group of law school students in order to make them discuss a case with professional jurists. The students, coming from national and international Law Schools, participate as teams and have to deal with a case concerning the complex relationship between law and religion, a central issue for the entire world and indeed a crucial theme for the Fondazione Marcianum.
The initiative intends to bring together scholars and students of different backgrounds to have them address the very same case from two different standpoints. Some scholars act as judges of the Supreme Court of the United States; some as judges of the European Court of Human Rights. Teams argue the same case before one of the two boards of judges. After the final judgement, a roundtable gathers some scholars to debate the case as well as the way the two moot courts have addressed it.
This approach gives the students the chanche to measure themselves with a case related to fundamental rights, developing reflective and argumentative skills and, at the same time, it offers them, and the other participants, the occasion to highlight the different cultural points of view of the two Courts, enhancing the comparative perspective.
