The Day of Crisis is an international law and diplomacy competition launched by The Hague Academy of International Law in 2021. Each year, only 12 teams from all over the world are selected to participate in the competition, taking place on the premises of the Peace Palace in The Hague.

The team – Hannah Kroker, Shefali Maini, Jan Mais, Keito Mizuno and Marie Moens – won the prize for Best Team overall, as well as the prize for Best Written Submissions. 

The students also came second in the Negotiation category and third in the Initial Statement category. This was the very first time a team from the University of Edinburgh participated in the competition.

Unlike traditional mooting competitions, participants are only made aware of the problem upon arrival. The emphasis of the competition is on the negotiation and diplomacy aspects of crisis management. 

Over the course of 28 hours without interruption, participants are required to grapple with a series of international crises while representing a State, by providing legal advice and opinions, drafting documents, negotiating, and elaborating diplomatic strategies during multilateral meetings.

The final challenge of the competition consisted of an oral presentation before a panel of judges, including esteemed professors of international law and a judge at the International Criminal Court. The competition aims to challenge students’ knowledge of public international law and skills such as collaborating, drafting, negotiating and working under pressure.

The team said: “It is thanks to our broad knowledge of international law – which we deepened during our International Law LLM – the diversity of perspectives represented in our team, and our strong teamwork, that we were able to secure the prizes for Best Team overall and Best Written Submissions. We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in this competition on behalf of the Edinburgh Law School, as this experience will be tremendously enriching for our career development in the field of diplomacy and international law.”