ANNOUNCEMENTS

It is with great pleasure that we wish to announce that the team of the Athens Law School, which represented Greece in the European Regional Round of the International Virtual Trial in Space Law "Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition" (2022 European Rounds), which took place from 22 to 28. 3.2022, remotely due to the pandemic of COVID-19, reached the final of the European Rounds of the competition, finally finishing second among 15 European universities for 2022! Also, the student member of the team, George Hadjicharalambous, was awarded as the best speaker of the competition! In particular:  This Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition is organized, on an annual basis, by the International Institute of Space Law and, at the European level, by the European Centre of Space Law (ECSL). This year's case concerned legal issues related to the registration of space objects, the damage caused by space objects manufactured in space, and the application of the Protocol to the 2001 Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment / 2012 Protocol on Matters Specific to Space Assets. The case is available at: https://www.mootcourt.iislweb.space/

The Athens School of Law now counts eleven (11) entries in this competition, in which it has participated continuously since 2011 (with the exception of the 2018 competition, when the academic head of the team, Assistant Professor George Kyriakopoulos, was one of the two authors of the case that year and consequently, for ethical reasons, there could not be any participation by the School). During this period, the high level of the Law School's teams resulted in the Athens Law School being consistently ranked first in Europe, having achieved the following, out of eleven (11) participations:  

• Participation in the semi-finals of the European Tour, ten (10) times,
• Participation in six (6) finals of the European Tour,
• European Champion, four (4) times, three (3) times in a row (2012, 2015, 2016, 2017).
• Two runner-up finishes (2011, 2022)
• Four third places (2013, 2019, 2020, 2021)

At the same time, the Athens School of Law holds, comparatively for the same period, the first place in the world, since, since 2011:

• has participated four (4) times in the World Final Round,
• has been declared World Champion one (1) time,
• has been ranked second in the World, two (2) times.

It should be noted that these performances for the above period of time (2011-2022), both at European and world level, have not been achieved by any other university.

This year, the group was made up of undergraduate students: George Hadjicharalambous, Vera Palialexis and Sofia Kassara, under the supervision and guidance of Assistant Professor of the Athens Law School G. Kyriakopoulos, with the assistance, in the preparation of the team, of (undergraduate) student Niki Giannakou, who was a member of the 2019 team. It should be noted that the Greek students received excellent comments on their performance from the judges-judges, while the breadth and robustness of their legal arguments and their in-depth knowledge of international law and space law were particularly impressive. This high distinction of the Athens School of Law, which continues a long-standing presence at the highest level of this virtual trial competition (which is an extremely arduous academic process, requiring exhaustive study and immersion in both public international law and space law), proves once again the exceptional potential of Greek students (all the above distinctions have been won by different groups of students each year), their passion for research and learning, and their commitment to the development of the law of space.