Merton mooter takes on Internationals

During the Easter vacation, second-year Law undergraduate Ioana Burtea along with her partner Alex Benn (St Catherine’s) represented Oxford University at the International Rounds of the Monroe E Price Media Law Moot. The competition features students from more than 100 universities across six continents arguing about pressing media law and human rights issues. The 2017 competition focused on the questions of censoring citizen journalists and holding global social media companies liable. Oxford placed second internationally in the competition, ultimately losing out to the defending champions from the Singapore Management University. Despite competing against graduate and postgraduate students, both Ioana and Alex placed top ten as individual mooters in the competition as well.

Commenting on the experience, Ioana said:

"I am thrilled to have represented Merton and Oxford in this competition. Each stage in the process provided different exciting challenges, from researching what were entirely new fields for me to drafting 80-page memorials or advocating before experts in the field. Having the opportunity to moot before Sir Nicholas Bratza and Kate O’Regan in the finals was any law student’s dream come true!

"Our results are due in large part to the incredible support we received from Mansi Sood, our coach, and from the countless Oxford graduate and postgraduate students who volunteered their time to go through dozens of practice rounds with us. None of this would’ve been possible without their commitment or without the encouragement I received from Merton tutors to pursue this moot. A huge thanks also goes to the newly-opened Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and the Oxford Law Faculty for supporting our endeavours.”