The Competition Rules and Regulations may be viewed SLR IWS Rules and Regulation (PDF Document). Please note that the PDF document is the definitive version of the rules and the rules below should only be used as a reference.

COMPETITION RULES AND REGULATIONS

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1. Objective. This International Writing Symposium (”IWS”) is organised by the Singapore Law Review (”SLR”), and sponsored by the Singapore Law Academy, National University of Singapore Faculty of Law and TS Oon & Bazul with the goal of promoting legal thinking, writing and discussion amongst law students internationally.

2. Topic. The topic of the IWS is “Discrimination and the Law: a Help or a Hindrance?“.

PART II: GENERAL PROVISIONS

3. Knowledge of the Rules. All Participants are deemed to have full knowledge of the contents of these rules and any amendments made on the SLR website. The SLR reserves the right to amend these rules at any time. Participants are responsible for keeping up to date with changes in rules and regulations.

4. Amendments to the Rules. Any changes to the rules and other matters will be posted on the “official SLR IWS website” (http://iws.singaporelawreview.org/) or communicated via email. Participants are advised to refer to these sources regularly.

5. Overview of Competition. There are two aspects to the IWS - the Writing Competition and the Symposium. Participants who submit papers undertake to attend the Symposium should they be short-listed.

6. Competition Structure. The following are important dates with regard to the IWS:

(1) the deadline for submission of entries is at 2359 Hrs (UTC) on 10 July 2008.

(2) the results for short-listed entries will be released by (20 July 2007) via email; and

(3) the Symposium will start on (25 August 2008) and end on (26 August 2008). It will be held in Singapore at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law. Details of the location can be found at http://law.nus.edu.sg/faculty/Location.htm.

7. Eligibility. The competition is open to all faculties of law. Any law student may represent their university as long as they are undertaking a full-time undergraduate course at their faculty as of 10 July 2008. Members of the Singapore Law Review are not allowed to participate.

8. Recommendation. All submissions must be seconded by any full-time law tutor at the university in which the participant is pursuing his/her law degree - the seconding tutor’s name and contact details in the entry form must be filled up. By submitting these details, the participant represents that the tutor has read the submission and has agreed to second it as of reasonable merit.

9. Withdrawal. There shall be no withdrawal by a participant at any stage of the IWS without a valid reason and prior approval by the SLR. A person is a participant for the purposes of this part once he submits his paper to the SLR website.

10. Penalties. The rules contained herein, as well as all future amendments, are to be strictly followed. Breaches of the format rules in (Part III. THE WRITING COMPETITION para. 25. “Format of the Essay”) may result in deduction of points. Participants who breach paras. 5 and 9 will have their universities notified.

11. Others. The SLR maintains complete discretion in the administration of the IWS, which shall include the grading and selection procedure and grounds for disqualification. The SLR’s decisions are final and will not be questioned on any grounds.

PART III: THE WRITING COMPETITION

12. Topic. The topic for the Writing Competition is “Discrimination and the Law: a Help or a Hindrance?“.

13. Participation. By default, each submission will be recognised as authored by only one undergraduate. However, that undergraduate is free to enlist third party help for research or consultation etc subject to plagiarism rules. A special application can be made to recognise co authors for purposes of publication, but approval will be on a case by case basis. However, for the purposes of the symposium, there will only be one representative. All prizes shall be awarded solely to the symposium representative. All subsequent references to ‘participant’ and ‘entrant’ are to be read in light of this paragraph.
14. Entry Form. Each entrant is required to complete an entry form found at http://iws.singaporelawreview.org/. This entry form must then be attached as a cover page to each copy of the participant’s essay submissions.
15. Identification. The entrant’s name and university should not appear in the main body of the essay. Full details identifying the entrant should instead be set out in the aforementioned entry form that is to be attached as a cover page to each essay.
16. Submission of Essays. Each entrant is required to submit 1 electronic soft copy to iws@singaporelawreview.org. No hard copies are to be sent to the SLR. Soft copies should be named such that it is easily identifiable.
17. Confirmation of Receipt. The SLR shall notify participants by email within two days of the receipt of submissions or if submitted on the 10 August 2008, as soon as possible. It is the duty of participants to maintain a working email address and to notify the SLR should a reply not be received.
18. Qualification of Entries. Entries must be at least 4,000 words and at most 12,000 words in length. This word count excludes footnotes. Entries can be on any area relating to the topic and the guiding theme of this symposium, “Legal Solutions to Global Problems”. The SLR will interpret the scope of the IWS broadly to ensure that it affords the greatest degree of flexibility in writing on the topic, but in any event the decision of whether a particular essay qualifies for the Competition is entirely within the discretion of the SLR.
19. No Multiple Entries. Only one essay submission for the Competition is allowed per participant.
20. No Plagiarism. Entrants must submit their own original essays only. Failure to submit an original essay will result in disqualification from the Competition. All opinions, research and positions that have been referred to and/or used should be cited; failure to do so constitutes plagiarism. That person may enlist help in areas of research, etc. subject to the plagiarism rules but only one person is to be acknowledged as author of the piece. All prizes shall be awarded solely to the stated author of each paper.
21. No Published and/or Awarded Essays. Essays that have been published or are to be published in other publications and essays that have won prizes in other competitions do not qualify for entry into the IWS.
22. Short-listed Entries. Results of short-listed entries will be announced via email on 20 July 2008. Participants short-listed will qualify for the Symposium held on 25 and 26 August 2008. Short-listed entries will also be afforded an opportunity to be published in the next issue of the Singapore Law Review. More details with regard to the Symposium are contained in Part IV of the IWS Rules and Regulations.
23. Marking Criteria. The submissions will be graded with a very substantial focus on i) originality of thesis, ii) flow of arguments, iii) depth of analysis and iv) quality of research. The standard of the essay should be such that it is suitable for publication. Qualifiers for the symposium will be selected on these criteria. The symposium will allow the SLR to select the 5 prize winners from within those shortlisted.
24. SLR Publication Rights. Upon submission of a paper to the Singapore Law Review for the purposes of this competition, the SLR obtains the unfettered right to publish the paper, upon giving of notification by email to the participant, in the SLR journal or any publication of its choice. Consent of the participant is deemed have been given upon submission of the participant’s essay.
25. Participants’ Publication Rights. Participants are not allowed to publish their essays in any journal should they receive notification from the SLR. If no notification is received for one year after the date of submission, participants are entitled to publish their essays in any journal of their choice.
26. Format of the Essay.

1. Titles Contributions should have a title which is both concise and descriptive. Titles to articles should be flush left. Type in capitals and emphasise in bold.

2. Abstract All articles should be accompanied by an abstract of no more than 150 words.

3. Name and Autobiographical Notes Contributors are requested to supply their full name in whatever convention they personally prefer, not necessarily adopting the first name followed by last name convention. Autobiographical details should appear as the first footnote of each contribution, and include the contributor’s academic and professional qualifications, institutional affiliation, and current title. Acknowledgements (if any) may also be included.

4. Headings The number of levels of headings should not normally exceed four.

¨ First level headings should be centred. Type in capitals/small capitals. Precede by capitalised roman numerals, e.g., I, II, etc.

I. FIRST LEVEL HEADING IN CAPITALS/SMALL CAPITALS

¨ Second level headings should be centred. Type with initial capitals for main words only and italicise. Preceded by capitalised alphabets, e.g. A, B, etc.

A. Second Level Heading in Italics

¨ Third level headings should be flush left. Type with initial capitals for the first word and proper names only and italicise. Precede by arabic numbering, e.g., 1, 2, etc.

1. Third level heading in Italics

¨ Fourth level headings should be flush left. Type with initial capitals for the first word and proper names only and italicise. Precede by alphabets in parentheses, e.g., (a), (b), etc. End with a colon and run into text.

(a) Fourth level headings in Italics: [Run into text...]

5. References and Citations Citations should conform as closely as possible to the McGill Law Journal, Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 6^th Ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2006) The publishers are unable to check the accuracy of references and citations and it is the contributor’s responsibility to ensure that all references and citations are correct.

6. Quotations Quotations should be clearly indicated and it is vital that they are accurate.

¨ Where letters or words are replaced or inserted within a quotation, the replacement or inserted letters or words should be indicated in brackets “[ ]“.

¨ Where words, phrases or sentences are omitted within a quotation, the omission should be indicated by ellipses “…”. No indication of punctuation before or after the ellipse is necessary.

¨ Where the quotation will run to more than forty words it should be typed as a separate paragraph, left-indented and right-indented.

¨ Double quotation marks should be inserted at the beginning and end of every quotation, but not when the entire quotation is indented or at the beginning of every new paragraph within a quotation.

¨ Single quotation marks should be used at the beginning and end of quotations within quotations.

7. Use of Capital Letters Where reference is made to a specific office, organisation or body then the capital letters should be used. Where the reference is general or non-specific then the lower case letter should be used.

8. Abbreviations and Contractions The period should be used in conjunction with all abbreviations and contractions except in abbreviating the names of organisations. For example, “Company” is abbreviated to “Co.”, “exempli gratia” is abbreviated to “e.g.”, and “Limited” is contracted to “Ltd.”, whereas the “United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation” is abbreviated to “UNESCO”.

9. Foreign words Foreign words not currently absorbed into the English language should be italicised, e.g., “inter alia“, “bona fide” etc.

PART IV: THE SYMPOSIUM

All participants

27. Qualification for Symposium. Short-listed entries from the Writing Competition will qualify for presentation and judging at the Symposium. SLR reserves the right to decide who will attend the Symposium but all short-listed participants are likely to attend the symposium and should be prepared to fulfil their obligations as per para. 5. The SLR may contact short-listed participants by phone for an interview.
28. Attendance at Symposium. All participants are to independently obtain leave from their respective faculties to attend the Symposium should they be short-listed during the writing competition.
29. Format of Symposium. All participants will present a short overview of the core ideas in their paper and this will be followed by discussion of these ideas.
30. Judging criteria for symposium. Participants will be judged on i) contribution to academic discussion at symposium ii) defensibility of thesis. Style is not a criteria, however, there is still a need for clarity and coherence during presentation.
31. Abstract. All short-listed entrants will have to submit a single page abstract of the short-listed essay to the SLR if short-listed before the symposium. This is not to be more than 500 words long.
32. Presentation. All short-listed entrants will have to submit a summary of their presentation at the symposium for the purpose of allowing the judges to better follow their presentation.

Foreign participants

33. Logistics for Foreign Participants. Participants are advised to book a flight as soon as they are notified that they have been short-listed to attend the symposium. Participants should arrive at Changi Airport on the 24 August 2008. They should ensure that their departing flight takes place on the 27 August 2008.
34. Expenses for Foreign Participants. The SLR will only provide accommodations (nights of the 24th, 25th and 26th August 2008), meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and transport (trip from airport to hotel, trips from the hotel to the symposium venue and back, and trip from the hotel to the airport) for the duration of the symposium. Participants will bear the costs of the trip to and back from Singapore and other expenses which they incur.
35. Expenses for Local Participants. The SLR will provide meals (lunch and dinner) for the duration of the symposium (25 and 26 August 2008).

PART V: PRIZES

The prize monies for the Singapore Law Review Writing Competition and Symposium 2008 are as follows:

First Prize: USD 3,000.

Second Prize: USD 2,000

Third Prize: USD 1,000

2 consolation prizes of USD 500

The university at which the first prize winner is currently studying will be awarded a plaque and a competition shield, which will be held by the winning university of every biennial Symposium.

The winners of the first, second and third prizes will be offered places in the NUS LL.M. programme, subject to meeting minimum requirements.

All the above five prize winners will be offered paid internship opportunities with TS Oon & Bazul, a firm which has expertise in maritime, aviation, banking and finance. For more information, please refer to http://www.oonbazul.com.

All five prize winners will be considered for publication in the Singapore Law Review Journal.

For prize money winners, the SLR will issue a letter of guarantee and will transfer the money to the winning participants’ accounts shortly after the Symposium.

End