The ELTE Jessup Team Remains in the Top 1% Worldwide

22.05.2025.

At the 2025 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, held in Washington, D.C. from March 30 to April 5, the ELTE Faculty of Law reaffirmed its place among the world’s leading law schools. The ELTE Jessup Team achieved outstanding success, receiving two distinguished awards and once again securing its position in the top 1% of participants globally.

This year’s competition brought together 805 teams comprising over 3,000 law students from more than 100 countries. From this global pool, 744 students representing approximately 150 universities advanced to the international rounds in Washington, D.C.—a testament to the competition’s prestige as the world’s oldest and largest moot court event.

The ELTE Jessup Team earned remarkable results in the two most objective categories of the competition: in two categories of the written memorial contests. The team placed 10th in the combined ranking of plaintiff's and defendant's submissions among all national and international teams (Bassiouni/Dillard Award), and 12th among the teams that qualified for the international rounds (Alona E. Evans Award).

The 2025 Jessup case presented four highly topical and complex issues: the contested jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, the personal immunity of a state leader, the seizure of a state aircraft, and a comprehensive maritime law dispute arising from climate change. In the latter, one state sought to fix its baseline in response to sea level rise, while another state contested the legality of this action under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The members of the 2025 ELTE Jessup Team were Tibor Baranyi, Igor Beznoszka, Ábel Csiffáry, György Erményi, and Anna Szlovacsek. The team was coached by Professor Gábor Kajtár, Assistant Lecturer Zolta Buda, and doctoral candidate Luca Farkas.

The ELTE Jessup Team previously achieved global recognition in 2019 by winning the world championship. That historic victory marked the first time a team from Central Europe reached—and won—the final round in the competition’s six-decade history. It was also only the second time a non-native English-speaking European team captured the top honor.