The Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law (“Foundation”) is pleased to announce the 2025 Latin American Scholars Student Writing Competition to recognize excellence in academic legal research and writing for law students attending law schools in Latin America.

Awards: Winning submissions will receive a cash prize ranging from $1,000 and $2,000. Co-authors will share any prize awarded. The Foundation will award $1,000 each to the top two undergraduate submissions and $2,000 each to the top two graduate submissions. Students submitting the winning entries shall have their paper published in the Foundation’s Latin America Mineral and Energy Newsletter or other Foundation publication selected by the Foundation’s Executive Director. Members of the Latin American Law School Program Advisory Council will judge the competition.

Subject Matter: Entries should be focused on one or more Natural Resources, Environmental, or Energy Law issues of concern in our or more Latin American countries or worldwide and must be balanced, scholarly, well-written, well-researched, objective, and free from political or positional advocacy.

Eligibility: Undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled in a Latin American Law School are eligible. Any relevant article, comment, case note, or essay may be submitted, including writing submitted for academic credit. Jointly authored pieces are eligible only if all authors are students and consent to submit. Previously published pieces, or pieces that are already slated for publication, are ineligible.

Deadline: Entries must be received no later than 5:00 p.m. MT on March 31, 2025. Email entries and questions to Jaleen Edwards at [email protected].

Submission Requirements:

All submissions should be submitted in Spanish or Portuguese, with an English translation.

Students will also need to submit proof of current law school enrollment.

Cover page – This separate page must include the following information:

  • Title, author’s name, year in law school, law school name and address, and author’s expected graduation date (the author’s name and law school should only appear on the cover page);
  • Author’s permanent and school mailing address, email address, and phone number (indicate effective dates for any contact information subject to change);
  • Abstract (limited to 100 words) describing the piece; and
  • Certification (statement by the author) that the article has not been published and is not slated for future publication (while authors may submit their articles to other competitions, acceptance for publication elsewhere will disqualify an entry from further consideration).

Format: Submissions may be of any length up to a maximum of 40 pages or 10,000 words (including footnotes), in a double-spaced, 8.5 x 11-inch page format with 12-point font (10- point for footnotes), including clear citations. Submissions must be made by email attachment in Microsoft Word format, with the cover page as a separate attachment