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Global Arbitration review:

New Zealand team wins Vis moot

15 April 2009

Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand beat the International Law School of Pune in India in the 16th Vis moot in Vienna last week. But it was the performance of the - uncoached - Indian team that stood out, for at least one seasoned moot goer.

The final round was judged by the secretary general of the SCC Arbitration Institute Ulf Franke, Lebanese arbitrator and professor Nayla Comair-Obeid and Philip Capper, a partner at White & Case LLP and a professor at King's College London. before a crowd of 1,500 spectators.
Griffith University of Queensland and King's College London were runners-up. Other prizes went to teams from the University of Stockholm [best claimant memorandum] and the University of Sydney, New South Wales [best respondent memorandum].
Hew Dundas, one of the arbitrators at both this moot and last week's Vis Moot (East), says the Pune team gained the crowd's affection as an uncoached team consisting of two female students with only a single researcher as back-up.
"The single most outstanding performance was one of the Pune team members arguing on jurisdiction - objectively an impossible mountain to climb," he says.
Dundas, who describes the moot as one of the highlights of his professional year, also singles out a Polish team who mistakenly thought they were appearing for the claimant, but managed to put on a "highly creditable" performance for the respondent at just 10 minute's notice.
Although some suggested that this year's moot problem was tipped in favour of the respondent, in the 62 elimination rounds claimant teams won as often as the respondents. Dundas says this is because good moot judges decide on the basis of advocacy alone. "The moot is not about who wins or loses the case per se, but who argues better - so arguing a weak case well and imaginatively outperforms arguing an easy case routinely," he says.
This was reflected in the results of the 62 elimination rounds - in which claimant teams won as often as respondents.
This year's moot attracted 233 teams from 59 jurisdictions including Bahrain, the Cayman Islands, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Oman. The greatest number of teams came from the US (53), Germany (24), India (17), France (12), Switzerland (11) and England (10). The quarter-finals included teams from eight different countries.
In total there were roughly 1,500 student participants present and 650 arbitrators. 529 hearings took place over six days requiring 1, 587 arbitral "appointments".
Dundas says: "The Willem C Vis moot is one of the great events in the world's legal calendar and words are inadequate to measure the magnitude of Professor Eric Bergsten's achievement in bringing it to where it now is".
Last month's Vis Moot (East) featured 64 teams and was won by Loyola Law School of Los Angeles.
AR