“So how was the trip?” This question on its own is enough to
start a conversation with the five students of V M Salgaocar College of Law,
Miramar who recently participated at the first-ever Consensual Dispute
Resolution Competition (CDRC) in Vienna, Austria. Now back in college, this great
company of five students, Elton Furtado, Tammanna Aurora, Jonathan Rodrigues,
Shannon de Almeida and John Samuel had to prepare every bit, mentally and
financially, for the biggest journey of their life so far.
The IBA- VICA Mediation and Negotiation Competition –
Consensual Dispute Resolution Competition (CDRC) was organised by the European
Law Students’ Association (ELSA) in Vienna. The first edition of the
competition, it received entries from 40 colleges across the globe with 16
colleges qualifying for the round and just two colleges representing Asia, V M
Salgaocar College of Law, Miramar and National Law University (Delhi); both
from India. This was a proud moment for the five students who held their nerves
and were declared the second best team, as its entire group of negotiators and
the mediators made it past the CDRC preliminaries. The four-member negotiating
team made it to the quarterfinals, while the mediator, Jonathan was in the top
four. They competed against colleges from Lebanon, Istanbul, Georgia, Vienna
and Sáo Paulo, Brazil.
However, this victory didn’t come easy. The students had to
start from scratch by wrecking their brains to study the problems and to sort
out their own problems of visa, accommodation and funds for expense as the
competition was only providing them the opportunity to compete with world
teams. “We first went through the Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) selection
process in college, and from that five of us were selected to send in our
applications along with a profile for the competition. We were then sent a 70
page competition problem, based on a fictional commercial business dispute
between two companies. But we did most of our practice while negotiating with
sponsors in Goa,” says Shannon, a third-year LLB (Hons) student from Parra.
Tammanna, a fourth-year LLB (Hons) student from Dona Paula
adds to that, “We had to arrange for our own visas, accommodation and travel
expense in Vienna. To apply for the visa, we had to book our tickets and hotel
to show on the application. We were so busy running around to get our paperwork
in place, that we hardly had time to actually practise together. When it came
to arranging sponsors, some advocates were very helpful but the most common
excuse we received from people that we approached, was that they couldn’t
contribute because ‘mining had stopped’. This included some people who weren’t
even linked to the mining sector.”
Having collected the funds required, the students managed to
get their visas in hand just four days before the actual journey. But this
first trip abroad for all five students was an eye opener. “Though the entire
four days were spent at the competition and mingling with fellow participants,
we all had different plans for where to go and what to see. Shannon made an itinerary
but we hardly followed it. The country was so clean, with every citizen
following a civic sense and the law,” says Elton, third-year LLB (Hons) student
from Varca, who went shopping along with John and Jonathan while Tammanna went
sightseeing and Shannon visited art museums and monuments.
The sights and sounds of the city of Vienna amazed the five
and they got to see a new country and realise what India was missing out on.
“There are zebra crossings where the pedestrian is given more importance and
the cars wait, a cycle track only for cycles because they prefer either cycles
or cars and you can drink water from a tap. No matter how a girl is dressed, no
one judges her. However, the moment you say you are from Goa in the market
place, they reply back as ‘drug and party place’,” says Jonathan, third-year
LLB student from Utorda.
“The people were extremely helpful including the main organiser,
Claudia Winkler who took good care of all the participants. We were without a
coach, and yet everyone was friendly. We had dinner parties at the City Hall in
Vienna and Palais Trautson and got to interact and network with great
professionals,” says John, a third-year LLB (Hons) student from Bambolim.
With great memories, a lot of chocolate and a taste of schnitzel,
the students are back in college with the hope that their colleagues manage to
experience the same in the future.
