Second year PhD student Damian Gonzalez-Salzberg was selected as winner of the American University’s 2013 Human Rights Essay Award (http://www.wcl.american.edu/hracademy/hraward.cfm). Damian will be awarded a full scholarship to attend the Human Rights summer school of the American University and his essay will be published in the American University International Law Review.

With the generous support of the John Sherborne Foundation, the Law School once again offered a study trip for post-graduate students to visit the international institutions in Geneva. Twenty students from a wide variety of Masters courses offered by the School participated in the three day trip. The institutions visited included the EU Delegation to the UN, the United Nations, the UK Mission to the UN, the Advisory Centre on WTO Law, the World Trade Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

As ever, the students thoroughly enjoyed their time in Geneva, benefitting from presentations from and discussions with practitioners in the different institutions. The trip also provided students with the opportunity to engage with fellow post-graduates studying in different areas of law.

The 2013 trip saw some goodbyes to those who have been long-standing supporters of the trip during its life-span. Frieder Roessler, Director of the ACWL, and Phil Tissot, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN and other International Organisations in Geneva, retire this year, making the 2013 trip the last group to benefit from their input. The Law School would like to thank both for their generosity in meeting each year with our students. We wish them both well for the future.

Boyes Turner Negotiation Competition

2012/13 saw the Boyes Turner Negotiation Competition move forward under a new training team, headed by Rachel Fitzpatrick, one of the firm’s partners. The Law School was also delighted to welcome Helen Burnell, an alumnus of Reading and current trainee at Boyes Turner, as part of this year’s training team. 40 second and final year students benefitted from an interactive training seminar in November 2012 and went on to compete in the internal competition in February 2013. This year’s competition was won by Harriet Brooker and Nicholas Villalta, who tied for first place with Denzyl Siaw and Daniel Williams. All four students went on to compete in the regional rounds of the national negotiation competition and have received the valuable prize of work placements with Boyes Turner. The Law School is grateful to Boyes Turner for the opportunities offered to Reading University students and looks forward to working with the new team again next year.

Norton Rose Commercial Negotiation Competition 

Once again, the Law School was very pleased to welcome the Learning and Development team from Norton Rose to deliver training on the skills involved in commercial negotiation in October 2012. As ever, the training, which offers places for 40 second and final year students, was oversubscribed.

Norton Rose hosted a commercial negotiation competition at the Law School in January 2013, judged by an impressive panel of practitioners from Dell, Intel, Oracle and Shire. Recent Reading graduate and current trainee at Norton Rose, Liz McArthur, returned with the graduate recruitment team to provide an informative session for current students on life as a trainee at Norton Rose and the opportunities offered by the firm. The 2013 competition was won by Josephine Healy and Besma Kasmi, who both received work placements with Norton Rose. For the third year, David Hudson, VP and Regional General Counsel, EMEA, for Oracle, offered a work placement for the best runner up, who this year, was Harriet Brooker.

The Law School is extremely grateful to Norton Rose, and particularly to Mike Rebeiro, Reading alumnus and Head of Technology at Norton Rose, for their continued support of this training programme