From March 28 to April 3, 2022, the 19th Willem C. Vis East International Commercial Arbitration Moot was held online. After the fierce four-day round-robin competitions, the Tsinghua University team entered the elimination round with outstanding performance, and went all the way through to become the only team from China promoted to Quarter Finalists, making a historic breakthrough for THU School of Law and scoring the best achievement of Chinese universities in the Moot. Meanwhile, two advocates, Tan Yanfei and Cheng Tingru, won Honorable Mention For Best Individual Oral Advocate for their excellent comprehensive qualifications.
Tsinghua University team emerged as Quarter Finalists in the 19th Vis East Moot
The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, jointly sponsored by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, the University of Vienna and other institutions and taking place in English, aims to promote the research and study of international commercial law and commercial arbitration worldwide, and stands out as the largest and highest-standard law competition in the field of international commercial arbitration. Since its establishment by the organizing committee in Hong Kong in 2003, the Willem C. Vis East Moot has by far developed into the largest international commercial arbitration moot outside Vienna. The Moot this year attracted a total of 140 university teams from countries and regions around the world.
The Tsinghua University team in this year’s Moot was coached by Associate Professor Jane Willems and postdoctoral fellow Zhao Chunlei, and led by Tan Yanfei (Grade 2020 graduate student) of the School of Law. Cheng Tingru (Grade 2020 graduate student) and He Yanfei acted as advocates, and Su Mali (Grade 2020 graduate student), Zhang Yaqing (Grade 2019 undergraduate student) and Jiang Yuxin (Grade 2020 graduate student) were the main researchers. In addition, Fan Hengyan (Grade 2020 graduate student), Zhao Ziru (Grade 2020 graduate student), Zhou Lingwei (Grade 2020 undergraduate student) and Fan Ziyi (Grade 2019 undergraduate student) also contributed to the team by participating in preliminary preparation and offering competition assistance.
During the preparatory period lasting nearly six months, the team proactively carried out legal research, pleading writing, and oral practice. Before the formal competition, the team participated in such pre-moots as the 19th CIETAC International Commercial Arbitration Moot, the 12th Seoul Pre-Moot, the 1st APAC Pre-Moot and the 12th Moot Shanghai, and held many friendly warm-up competitions with Peking University Law School, Bucerious Law School, Germany, the Faculty of Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the School of Law of the New York University. Through high-quality intensive training, the team gradually understand the competition problems, improve their ability to argue in court, make timely reviews and conduct in-depth research pertinently after each practice, in efforts to strengthen the legal support for various arguments and lay a solid foundation for their wonderful performance in the final formal competition.
In the process of preparing for the Moot, the team also received guidance and assistance from alumni of the Tsinghua School of Law (THU Law), including Guan Wenyue, Shan Weijing, Dai Xingmao, Sun Yirong, Fredrik Lindmark, and current students Roslyn Lai and Fang Zupeng.
The Moot competition this year, also vigorously supported by the School of Law and the Student Association for Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, presented the outstanding achievements of the school in training international talents and promoting legal practice education and reflected the spirit of law students for constant self-improvement and passing the flame of tradition.
