The Competition
The Committee for the Jean-Pictet Competition
The CCJP is the association that organizes the Competition. It is a not-for-profit association under French law, with no employees: everything you see of an edition is the work of its members and of the volunteers they gather.
What the Committee does.
The Committee writes each edition’s scenario and the tests that run through it, receives and reviews the teams’ applications, chooses the host city and negotiates the arrangements, gathers some forty volunteers per edition, and runs the week from beginning to end.
Between editions it keeps the Regulations up to date, tends the alumni network, looks for the support that keeps the Competition affordable, and administers the Universality Fund.
Its members.
The Committee brings together academics, practitioners of international humanitarian law and delegates of humanitarian organizations. Nearly all of them came through the Competition — first as participants, then as volunteers.
The biographies are not carried over here: they aged faster than we updated them, and everyone is reachable elsewhere. For a question that concerns one person in particular, write to the Committee and it will be passed on.
W. Chadwick Austin
United States
Member since 2012
Sébastien Botreau-Bonneterre
France
Member since 2021
Emiliano Buis
Argentina
Member since 2012
Christie Edwards
United States
Member since 2021
Marjan Ghanbari
Iran
Member since 2021
Thomas Graditzky
Belgium/Switzerland
Member since 2000
Julia Grignon
France
Member since 2008
David Kootz
France
Member since 2012
Corinne Lanord-Dam
Belgium
Member since 2012
Philippe Larochelle
Canada
Member since 2016
Cainnech Lussiaà-Berdou
Canada
Member since 2016
Maria Marouda
Greece
Member since 2003
Xavier Philippe
France
Member since 2012
Urs Portmann
Switzerland
Member since 2012
Jean-François Quéguiner
France
Member since 1999
Tamar Tomashvili
Georgia
Member since 2012
Marie-Louise Tougas
Canada
Member since 2012
Simon Tremblay
Canada
Member since 2012
Julien Tropini
France
Member since 2021
Mustafa Tuncer
Turkey
Member since 2021
Ana Urgoiti
Spain
Member since 2007
Administration.
Christophe Lanord
France
Administrator since 2016
Honorary members.
The title marks those whose work shaped the Competition and who no longer sit on the Committee.
Michel Deyra
France · Co-founder of the Competition and Honorary President
Bernard Dougherty
United States
Christopher M. Rassi
United States
Garth Abraham
South Africa
Patrícia Galvão Teles
Portugal
Sylvain Beauchamp
Canada
Théo Boutruche
France
In memoriam.
Catarina de Albuquerque, a member of the Committee from 1998 to 2025, died on 7 October 2025.
Catarina de Albuquerque
Portugal
1970–2025
The volunteers.
An edition stands on four teams of volunteers: the judges, who assess the tests; the tutors, who accompany the teams all week; the petits bras, who keep the logistics and the document distribution running; and the kitchen, which writes the tests and holds the scenario together. All of them are Competition alumni or IHL experts.
Writing to the Committee.
A question about an application, an edition, the Picteist directory or a partnership? One address.