Seventeenth IRLM (2024)

The Seventeenth International Roman Law Moot was hosted in the Austrian capital by the Universität Wien, from 3 to 7 April 2024.

The libellus offered a compelling moot-within-a-moot, and traversed a range of private law topics, from inheritance and gifts, through assertion of ownership and restitution of fruits, to the delict iniuria (disrespect, outrage or contumely). Teams were sent scurrying to Justinian’s Code and Novels to confirm special rules relating to church property, to analyse underlying facts concerning the ownership of a private members’ club, the ‘Garden of Paradise’, on the Golden Horn. (Any resemblance to the Pausilypon, which hosted last year’s IRLM Small and Grand Finals, was doubtless coincidental.) Family dynamics and personal interests clash when the heiress Helena falls ill, and the matter is further complicated by benefits intended for the Convent of Saint Mary of Magdala, which Helena establishes for reasons of conscience, and which provides for women who have escaped from prostitution. Meanwhile, scandal erupts in the hippodrome at the finals of the (doubtless also coincidentally familiar) legal advocacy competition, the Exercitationes Forenses Iure Novo vel Iudicum Tirocinium, when one of the advocates is revealed before all of Constantinople’s elite to have been a young woman. It later turns out that, in apparent contravention of rules and custom, the problem drafted for the Exercitationes was based on the facts of the Convent’s intended lawsuit; the public expression and scandal risk compromising the arguments in the real case, as does the apparent manipulation of the coaches’ conclave.

The preliminary rounds of the Seventeenth IRLM were held at the Juridicum, the largest law school in the German-speaking world. For the advanced rounds, participants were privileged to use grand historical court rooms at the magnificent Justizpalast in Vienna, and to have Professor Dr Georg Kodek, President of the Austrian Supreme Court, preside over the Grand Final.

Participants gratefully acknowledge the support of the Rechtswissenschaftliche Fakultät at the Universität Wien, the Oberster Gerichtshof, the Kunsthistorisches Museum and MANZ Verlag & Buchhandlung.