National Arbitration Competition is over
2013-06-24
On June 22-23 Tbilisi State University National Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution (NCADR) organized Georgian National Arbitration Competition in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), South Texas College of Law (STCL), East West Management Institute (EWMI) and it’s program The Judicial Independence and Legal Empowerment Project (JILEP).
National Competition was held in the 1st Academic building of Tbilisi State University.
On June 21 meeting with participants of National Arbitration Competition was held. Members of 8 registered teams were represented at the meeting which was dealt by NCADR members. After the welcome speeches speakers of the meeting Giorgi Tsertsvadze and Natia Chitashvili explained the rules of the competition, assessment criteria used in the score-sheets, procedure of the arbitration process, grounds for giving penalty scores by judges, regulations used during the arbitration process, etc.
The assignment of the teams was made by the lottery voting. Two members from attended students were asked to take sheets from the voting box and show it to the observers and participants of the event. The voting process was videotaped in case of demand from any interested person NCADR could present the video material of the lottery voting process.
As a result of lottery voting the following assignment for the preliminary round was made between the teams:
Team “Shota Rustaveli Batumi State University” vs Team “TSU”
Team “Order of Lawyers” (TSU) vs Team "Blitskrig" (Free University )
Team “Ilia State University” vs Team “International Black Sea University”
Team “University of Georgia” vs Team "Free University"
On 22nd of June the competition was opened by welcome speeches. Steve Austermiller and Giorgi Tsertsvadze made their opening statements. Representatives from different universities attended the competition.
All teams were distributed in 4 different rooms. All 4 preliminary rounds took place simultaneously during one hour. Arbiters were represented in the role of judges. NCADR had separate meeting with judges. They were explained what was demanded from them in terms of assessment criteria and grounds for giving penalty scores.
The process of the arbitration was strictly monitored by the organizers so that coaches and attendees could not interfere in the process to support their teams.
The following teams went into semi finals based on the scores received during the preliminary rounds:
Team “TSU” vs Team “Ilia State University”
Team “Free University” vs Team Blitskrig” (Free University)
The lottery voting was made publicly to make assignments between nominated semi finalists.
After the preliminary and semi final rounds all judges made public detailed feedback to the teams and announced the scores to the them. The score-sheets were public to the participants including the names of the judges.
Three judges were assigned to the final round where team Free University met team TSU. TSU team became the winner of the competition. Judges publicly provided detailed feedback to students. All participant students, coaches and judges were granted with relevant certificates. Chief of the arbiters Sophie Tkemaladze a representative of JILEP gifted books on arbitration to all finalist students.
NCADR provided appropriate venue for the competition: cafeteria, 4 rooms for preliminary rounds, one separate room for judges to be isolated from students and the largest and the most beautiful room (mostly used for the rector presentations) as a plenary one. NCADR also incurred catering costs during three days (June 21-23).
