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VU students concur price in Red Cross competition

The VU University student team has won the price for best role play in the Kalshoven competition by the Red Cross. The Kalshoven competition is a competition on International humanitarian laws of war.

VU University students Amelie Wachendorf, Sungmi Shin and Martins Klive have concurred the price for best role play. Under supervision of  University professor Tarcisio Gazzini the VU team competed against six other student teams originating from the Netherlands and Flanders.

The teams competed against each other during role plays and a pleading competition. A fictive war was discussed at length leading up to the last day of the competition where the teams had to advocate their case in front of a jury.

Kalshoven competition
During the competition students studied humanitarian war laws that abide rules to the conduct of armed conflicts. The teams than had to convince a jury of the law being on their side. The acts of the competing party’s where than tested to the Geneva conventions.  

The competition’s jury consisted of representatives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Ministry of Defense and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The price was awarded by the law of war expert and eponym to the committee, professor Frits Kalshoven.  

The competition took place from the 14th till the 18th of February and saw its fourth year anniversary.

The Red Cross
The Red Cross is the impellent force behind the development of the humanitarian laws of war.
A number of tasks of the aid agency are now adopted in the Geneva conventions and the supplementing protocols of those conventions. The Red Cross hope’s that through this Kalshoven competition the knowledge of students about humanitarian laws of war will expand, and that the students will learn to apply these laws in practice.