ILSA News

ILSA is now accepting nominations for the 2026 Student Deak Award. The Student Deak Award is given annually to the best international law student article in a student-edited law journal. The award honors Francis Deak, a WWII veteran who wrote extensively on international law. The award is the student corollary to the Deak Prize separately awarded by the American Journal of International Law to a younger author for meritorious scholarship in the prior year’s volume of the Journal.

Students, professors, practitioners or other persons in the legal community may nominate students for the Deak Award. Student may also self-nominate.

Per award rules, the nominee must have been a student at the time the article was written, and the article must have been published in a student-edited journal during the award year (2025). All nominations satisfying these criteria will be considered by the awards committee who will choose the winning submission. Nominations should be submitted to [email protected] no later than 10 January 2026. All nominations must include the article citation and article in PDF format along with the name and email address of the author.

The award will be presented at the American Society of International Law’s 2026 Annual Meeting which will be held 22 – 25 April 2026 in Washington, DC.

The American Society of International Law’s International Refugee Law Interest Group (IRLIG) is pleased to announce the twelfth annual International Refugee Law Student Writing Competition.

Eligibility and Requirements

1. Papers may address any topic related to international law and refugees, stateless persons, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and/or forced displacement.
2. Particular consideration will be given to papers authored by people who have experienced forced displacement and to student scholars in the global south.
3. Student authors must have been enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at an accredited university in 2025.
4. Papers must be written solely by the candidate in English.
5. Citations should be in footnotes, rather than endnotes. If the paper is subsequently submitted for consideration for publication in the International Journal of Refugee Law (see below), it must comply with the Journal’s style guide (https://academic.oup.com/ijrl//pages/style_guide) and the OSCOLA footnote style (https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/oscola_4th_edn_hart_2012.pdf). For that reason, student authors should consider adopting this style in their submission and consider the journal’s tips for new writers (https://academic.oup.com/ijrl/pages/tips-for-new-authors?login=true).
6. Submissions may range from 7,000 to 12,000 words, including footnotes.
7. Each candidate is limited to a single submission.
8. Candidates should only resubmit previously unsuccessful submissions following substantial revision.

Deadline and Method of Submission

1. The deadline for submissions is 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, January 7, 2026.
2. Articles should be submitted to [email protected] as Microsoft Word attachments. Questions should be directed to the same address.
3. By submitting papers, candidates represent that they fulfill the eligibility requirements of the Competition. The organizers may request formal proof of eligibility.
4. No later than 72 hours after the submission deadline, candidates will receive an e-mail confirming that their submissions have been received.

Continue reading “Twelfth Annual International Refugee Law Student Writing Competition” →

Rusty Dalferes was passionate about furthering the “Spirit of the Jessup.” In his 15 years as the International Rounds Judge Coordinator, he witnessed first-hand the positive impact our judges have. He would often note that there were many judges around the globe who would have been valuable members of the International Rounds benches. Further, he recognized that judges who experienced the International Rounds were better champions for the rule of law and were motivated to help promote it in their own countries. He also recognized, however, that the time and financial burden of traveling to Washington could be an insurmountable hurdle for many. In honor of these principles, and in memory of our good friend who left us too soon, the Rusty Dalferes Memorial Fund was established in 2022 to help defray travel costs for dedicated, skilled Jessup judges to attend the White & Case International Rounds. If you have previously received a grant from the Dalferes Fund you are not disqualified from applying again, but this will be weighed by the committee in making its selections.

If you wish to be considered for selection as a 2026 Dalferes Laureate, please complete the application form. The deadline is December 4, 2025.

Couldn’t make it to New York City for International Law Weekend? Don’t worry, you can still check out the recording of the Jessup 2026 ILW Problem Panel.

ILSA and the American Branch of the International Law Association will host the annual Jessup Compromis Panel as part of this year’s International Law Weekend in New York City at noon (EDT) on 25 October. A panel of four experts will answer questions on the topics raised by the Jessup 2026 Compromis.

If you are interested in attending in person, visit https://www.ila-americanbranch.org/ilw-2025-registration/ to register. If you cannot attend in person, the event will be livestreamed on Zoom at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81466024417?pwd=M3jfh7brAZ1tZJEDPzB5SHim7LoNGZ.1 and later posted to our YouTube channel. Continue reading “ILW Jessup 2026 Compromis Panel” →

Continue reading “Jessup 2026 Basic Materials Now Available” →

ILSA has compiled a list of Approved Acronyms as set out in Rule 5.17(b) for the Jessup 2026 Problem. Continue reading “List of Approved Acronyms as set out in Rule 5.17(b) for Jessup 2026” →

Have you found something in the Jessup 2026 problem that you feels need clarification or you think is an outright error?

This form allows you to submit requests for corrections and clarifications to the Jessup 2026 Problem. If you have more than five clarification requests, please submit them in separate batches. The deadline to submit requests is 17 October 2025.

Continue reading “Jessup 2026 – Now Accepting Requests for Corrections and Clarifications” →

The 2026 Hamilton Lugar / ILSA Undergraduate International Law Moot Court Problem is now available. You can download it as a docx or a pdf.

The Hamilton Lugar / ILSA Undergraduate International Law Moot Court Competition is a simulation of oral argument before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Teams argue both sides in a fictional dispute between two countries. Colleges and universities can enter up to five teams of two students apiece.

The Competition is open to undergraduate students in the United States and Canada. It is co-hosted and co-administered by the Hamilton Lugar School of Global & International Studies at Indiana University.

The Competition is based upon the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, which ILSA has administered annually since 1959. Now in its 67th year, the Jessup Competition is the largest competition in the world for law students, with more than 800 schools in 106 countries last year.

The 2026 Competition will take place 26 Feb-1 Mar at Indiana University Bloomington in Bloomington, IN. The Registration fee is $250 for the first team registered from a given school, and $200 for each team thereafter. Spots are limited. The deadline for registration is 1 December 2025.

Click here to learn more.

Our friends at Jessup Kenya are hosting the second annual Jessup Africa Information Session online from September 24 to 26. All interested Jessup teams (registered or prospective) can email [email protected] for more information, or register online at https://forms.gle/XDq9ZSPG8jCuTVB88.