“1st NLUO PHFI Public Health National Law Moot Court Competition Begins Virtually from Today i.e. 24th June 2021.”

 

The inaugural ceremony for the 1st NLUO PHFI Public Health Law National Moot Court Competition was held today from 10.30 am to 11 am and presided over by Prof Ved Kumari, Vice-Chancellor, NLUO, Prof (Dr.) Yogesh Pratap Singh, Registrar, National Law University Odisha, Dr. Shifalika Goenka, Professor, Bioethics, Public Health Foundation of India and Ms. Nanditta Batra, Faculty Co-Director, Centre for Public Health Law. The moot brings the virtual conglomeration of 62 teams from National Law Universities, Central and State Government Law Department's, Private Law Universities and law colleges from the length and breadth of the country.  The moot focuses on the issue of compulsory vaccination and immunity to vaccine developers and manufacturers along with ancillary issues of federalism in the context of Public Health policy.  

 

Prof (Dr.) Yogesh Pratap Singh welcomed all the guests and participants. He underscored the relevance and importance of public health law as a discipline and the role law plays in bringing behavioural changes. He also highlighted the steps being taken by National Law University Odisha in this regard and the collaborations undertaken including with Public Health Foundation of India and the Union. Dr. Shifalika Goenka also highlighted the role non medical factors such as behaviour, climate, food habits play in health and therefore the vital role that State can play through rule making to ensure good public health.  She emphasised on an important fact that the world is not only facing a Covid pandemic but also an obesity, malnutrition and climate change pandemic. According to her it is not just upto the health professionals to combat these but lawyers have a very important role too in combating these public health challenges.Prof (Dr.) Ved Kumari, the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of NLUO expressed her delight at hosting India’s first public health law moot and the overwhelming response that the first edition of the moot received with teams from almost all parts of India.  She is keen on an academic collaboration between NLUO and PHFI to offer coursed under choice based credit system. She exhorted the students to look at positive aspect of participation rather than winning or losing the competition. With that she welcomed the participants, wished them luck and flagged off the moot court competition.

 

The competition commenced today shortly after the inaugural. 32 teams faced each other today in first leg of preliminary round and another 30 will participate tomorrow in prelims. Top 16 teams will make it to octa- finals which will be held 26^th June. Semi-finals and finals will be held on 27^th June. It’s is proposed to live stream the finals and valedictory.

To watch the any round of the competition please write to: cphl@nluo.ac.in or nanditta.batra@nluo.ac.in.

 

Contact Persons:

Nanditta Batra, Faculty Co-Director, CPHL

Khushi Bhardwaj, Student Coordinator, CPHL

Sambram Mohaptra, Student Coordinator, CPHL