Organized by the Wine & Law Program with the assistance of the Georges Chappaz Institute of Vine and Wine in Champagne and the support of the AIDV, the simulation of trials in vitivinicultural law welcomes each year students of specialized training in France and in Europe.

Objective: Familiarize students with the practical questions of European and international law of the vine, wine and spirits, in particular by a mock trial.

Organization: The action consists in setting up an educational process which resembles a contest of contentious procedure before the Court of Justice of the EU on a case related to the law of the vine and the wine. Note that there is also keen interest for students from universities outside Europe, as the practical case will concern questions of international wine trade.

A fictitious practical case will be distributed to the participating teams. The competition is not only open to students enrolled in Master 2 at the University of Reims but it is open to students enrolled in other training at Masters level (in France or elsewhere). The idea would be to form teams that will oppose by presenting their legal arguments. The procedure will be written in a first phase and the different teams will present their defense brief. Then the two best teams will compete for the oral phase (final), according to the rules of procedure of the EU Court of Justice.

The procedural languages ​​will be English and French. Exam rules are established each year by the jury.

The jury will be composed of the President or a Vice-President of the AIDV, a representative of the OIV, a judge (or referendum) at the Court of Justice of the European Union, an academic (outside the Universities who participate in the competition) and a personality from the professional world of wines and spirits. The jury will be responsible for writing the practical case and evaluating the teams.

The whole procedure will last approximately 3 months. For the 2016 session, it will be launched in October 2016 for the final scheduled for the end of January 2017.

The pleadings of the plaintiff and the defendant and the final decision (with the reasoning and, where appropriate, the dissenting opinions) will be published on the Wine & Law Program website.

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