The Competition started as a local moot organised in France by Michel Deyra of the University of Clermont-Ferrand in 1988 before opening its international doors in 1989.[7] Since then, it has been hosted in a variety of countries, including Switzerland, Serbia, Indonesia, the United States, and South Africa.[6] It is named after Jean Pictet, a Swiss jurist and international humanitarian law advocate who contributed to the drafting of the Geneva Conventions.
The Competition styles itself as "taking the law out of the books".[8] Participants are assessed on their ability to use the law in strategic scenarios, including their knowledge of the substantive law, their teamwork and collaboration, and how well they represent the actors they are assigned to.[9] Through multiple mini-competitions across a week, which might include traditional moot courts, negotiations, or real-time simulations, teams are selected to advance to the semi-finals, and then finals. All participants are known as "Picteists", and join a Directory of Picteists for Competition alumni.[10]
Commentators have described the Competition to be different from other grand slam moots in being more varied in the participants' usage of the law; compared to the Jessup, which only applies the law in the courtroom in an appellate format, the Jean-Pictet Competition requires participants to play different roles, such as ICRC delegates and treaty negotiators, and has been praised as being able to benefit them not just professionally but personally.[7][11]
Teams first submit a set of long-form written essays on their application to the Competition, which then selects roughly 50 teams for each edition. The preliminary rounds begin after the teams travel to the hosting country and lasts a week. The semi-finals and finals happen on the same day.[9] Teams which have won regional international humanitarian law competitions, such as the Hong Kong Red Cross IHL Moot, are eligible to skip the essay selection stage.
