For the first time, CIL participated in the 6th Summer Academy at the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea on 22 July – 18 August 2012, in Hamburg, Germany. This year’s theme was ‘Promoting Ocean Governance and Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’, and the program includes international law of the sea, maritime law and related topics of economic and natural sciences.

The Summer Academy brings together a prestigious faculty from among the judges of the Tribunal, including President S. Yanai and Judges T. Mensah, V. Golitsyn, R. Wolfrum, D. Attard, T. Ndiaye and H. Turk, as well as the Registrar of the Tribunal, P. Gautier. In addition, professors and professionals from the maritime field from around the world, such as R. Cleverly, J. Brown, S. Fietta, G. Lugten, J. Hare and M. Jacobson, were invited to give lectures on various topics, including maritime delimitation, piracy, fisheries and marine environment, carriage of goods by sea, marine insurance, oil pollution and ship building and vessel financing.

Thirty five young scholars, practitioners and government officials from twenty four countries participated in the Summer Academy this year.

In the final week of the Summer Academy, the participants were required to form teams to compete in a moot court competition.

CIL Research Associate, Leonardo Bernard, received a partial scholarship from the International Foundation for the Law of the Sea to participate in this year’s Summer Academy. Leo and his team also managed to win the moot court competition, where he had to argue a maritime boundary delimitation case in front of a panel of judges presided by Judge H. Turk. The award was presented by the Chair of the International Foundation for the Law of the Sea, Doris Konig, during the formal Senate Reception in the Town Hall of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.