2025 ILSA / Hamilton Lugar Competition Basic Materials Revealed

These Basic Materials are intended to give teams a strong foundation with which to begin their research. Teams are not limited to these materials and are strongly encouraged to go beyond them in their research for the Competition. ILSA may update this list on an ad hoc basis.

2017 Jessup Competition Materials

The 2025 ILSA Hamilton Lugar official problem is derived from the facts underlying the 2017 Jessup Compromis, The Case Concerning the Sisters of the Sun.  As a consequence, the following materials are made available to competitors (with the twin cautions that (1) the facts of this case are in many ways different than the Sisters of the Sun, and (2) international law has developed since these documents were written).

• Bench Memorandum of the 2017 Jessup Competition
• Best Applicant Memorial of the 2017 Jessup Competition (University of the Philippines)
• Best Respondent Memorial of the 2017 Jessup Competition (University of Queensland, Australia)

Treaties

• UN Charter
• ICJ Statute
• Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
• 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property
• 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects

Cases and Awards

• Case Concerning the Gabčikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary v. Slovakia)
• Case Concerning the Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay)
• Trail Smelter Arbitration(United States v. Canada), 3 U.N. Rep. Int’l Arb. Awards 1905 (1941)

U.N. Documents and Other Materials

• Articles of Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts
• UN General Assembly Resolution 63/124 (Draft Articles of Transboundary Aquifers)
• UN Guiding Principles of Unilateral Declarations
• UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Advisory Note, Repatriation Request for the Yaqui Maaso Kova, U.N. Human Rights Council, Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples  (16 June 2020)
• Miles Jackson and Federica Paddeu, The Countermeasures of Others: When Can States Collaborate in the Taking of Countermeasures?, 118 AJIL 231 (2024)
• Gabriel Eckstein, International Law for Transboundary Aquifers: A Challenge for Our Times, 115 AJIL Unbound 201 (2021)