UCT among the finalists of negotiation competition

A team of law, engineering and economics students from UCT competed in the final stage of the Copenhagen Competition, recently held in Denmark.

They were Takunda Chitaka (currently studying towards an MPhil in sustainable mineral resource development), LLB postgraduates Daniel Sive (pictured handing a gift to Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt) and Julia Rushton, and Timothy Ndamira (who's studying toward an MSc in Chemical Engineering).

The Copenhagen Competition is an invitation-only interdisciplinary negotiation competition, taking students from around the world into a simulation of real multilateral negotiations. The aim of the negotiations is an agreement in an area of potential global regulatory coordination.

The topic this year was the Sustainable Energy Trade Agreement (SETA), and the competition was concerned with various fields relating to international trade laws, environmental protection and sustainable development. Students on each team represented a fictional state in the SETA negotiations and proposed one item of particular importance to be placed on the final negotiating list for SETA.

UCT's team proposed that sustainable three-way catalytic converters be placed on a positive SETA list of products to be given duty-free status by member countries, thereby promoting almost immediate effects in reducing climate change in a relatively cost-effective manner.

Photo supplied.