MEMORIAL WRITING
ADVOCACY SKILLS LEGAL REASONING (INTERNATIONAL LAW MOOT COURTS)
GENERAL INFORMATION
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Each team prepares:
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One Applicant Memorial•
One Respondent Memorial•
Content: written advocacy (≠ neutral, carefully balanced
research paper)
•
Purpose: convince an international judicial organ that your
side should prevail on the facts and on the law
•
Role:
PRELIMINARY SECTIONS OF THE MEMORIAL
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Cover Page
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Table of Contents
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Index of Authorities /List of Sources/
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Statement of Jurisdiction
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Questions Presented /Issues/
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Statement of Facts
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Summary of Pleadings
•
Pleadings (including Conclusion/Prayer for Relief)
/Argument + Submissions/
COVER PAGE
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the team’s members in the upper right-hand corner
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the name of international judicial organ
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the year of the proceeding before international
judicial organ
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the name of the case
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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content: preliminary sections (including a list of
headings contained in the Pleadings)
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automated features in the word processing software
•
Formatting: only three / four levels of headings:
Level 1
A Level 2
1. Level 3
INDEX OF AUTHORITIES (LIST OF SOURCES)
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sources of law are divided into major groupings (within
the grouping alphabetical order)
•
Corfu Channel Case (UK v. Albania) (Merits), ICJ Rep. 1949 . . .
. . . 4, 25
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proposal:
•
Treaties and Conventions
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United Nations Resolutions and other documents
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International cases and arbitral decisions
STATEMENT OF JURISDICTION
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grounds for jurisdiction, according to a particular
legal instrument
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any argument with respect to jurisdiction or
admissibility shall be included in the Pleadings
(Arguments)
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uncontested jurisdiction: referral to art. 40(1)
and art. 36(1) of ICJ Statute
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disputed jurisdiction: reservation of one of the
parties (eg. matters within domestic jurisdiction)
QUESTIONS PRESENTED
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extract of the legal issues form arguments
organized in a logical order
•
Methods used by the teams:
•
Repeating the relief claimed by the relevant party in the Case, but rewording the relief into questions•
Identifying the one or two key issues arising from each item of relief sought by the relevant partySTATEMENT OF FACTS
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stipulated facts and necessary inferences from the
case
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forbidden: unsupported facts, distortions of stated
facts, argumentative statements, or legal
conclusions
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unfavorable facts
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must not be ignored
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presented in such a way as to draw the reader’s
attention to more favorable facts
SUMMARY OF PLEADINGS
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more than a mere reproduction of the section
headings contained in the Pleadings (Argument)
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distill the essence of the arguments in relation to
PLEADINGS / ARGUMENTS
Practical advises from Jessup Guide
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avoid unnecessary arguments
•
main goal of the document: to persuade the international judicial organ to rule in favor of one of the parties to the dispute•
memorial is not a legal treatise on all topics which might be relevant to the subject matter of the Case•
a careful assessment of what matters you must establish to succeed with your case; good judgment about what matters will be raised by your opponent (preemptive rebuttal)•
avoid the repetition of facts in the Pleadings section
(Argument Section)
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avoid: large quotes, paraphrasings, or other lengthy references to the facts of the case which are not integrated with legal argument•
refer to important facts in concise statements properly footnoted•
address weaknesses in the legal argument ways to
address weaknesses in an argument
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distinguish it factually•
domestic / regional judiciary v. law accepted by international community as a whole•
cited legal theory is a mere obiter dictum, incapable
of creating legal obligations
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legal theory may be one arising from a convention
obligation that does not actually bind one of the
parties
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equity as a last resort argument
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a certain issue for which the great weight of the
authority is in favor of only one side; preference for
equitable arguments that would support a minority
view
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Example: “The granting of an immunity can constitute a denial of justice. In the circumstances of the present case, the granting of an immunity to the Raglanian Royal Navy has denied effective remedies to Appollonian•
strategic concessions
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if the great weight of authority is against a particular
argument, do not try to argue something that would
finally fail or do not ignore a particular legal issue,
leaving it unmentioned
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no legitimate reason to argue a particular legal
point
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never concede an entire Prayer for Relief
contradictory argument in the same memorial
