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The Singapore Law Gazette

A Review of the 2021/22 International Moots Season

This is the eighth1The previous reports can be found in “Covid-19 and the 2020/21 international moots season”, Law Gazette, September 2021. Each moot season corresponds to the windows of the moots covered. annual review of Singapore’s performance in international moot court competitions.2Mediation or negotiation competitions are excluded from this recap, though our schools continue to excel in such competitions. An overview of the results for this season is presented at Table #1 below, while Tables #2 and #3 provide a snapshot of the results of the past 10 seasons. Despite the substantial lifting of travel restrictions throughout the world, the 2021/22 international moots season remained a virtually conducted one for many competitions, though competitions such as IP, Stetson, PAX, and WTO saw a much-welcomed return to in-person hearings, allowing students to compete and interact with teams and judges from around the world at places such as Oxford, Tampa, Paris, and Geneva. Whichever the format, our students continued to do well and break records.

At the regional level, NUS won its first ever LAWASIA title to add to Singapore’s five previous championships, while SMU won its fifth Asia Cup title to add to Singapore’s previous 10 and also won Singapore’s first Perera title. In regional qualifiers for the internationals, Singapore also featured in several championship finals, such as Price (SMU), Stetson (SMU), and WTO (NUS). At the international level, Singapore achieved its first podium finish in the Oxford IP Moot in more than 10 years when SMU came in 2nd-runners-up, while also winning Singapore’s first Best Oralist title in this competition in the process. Major competitions in which our mooters also won Best Oralist awards include Air, Fletcher, and Price. Other notable international results include SMU making its third championship final appearance in the Red Cross IHL competition in six years (winning the chip eventually), NUS taking its second HSF Competition Law championship and making its eighth championship final appearance in the IMLAM, and SMU becoming the first Asian university to win the world championship at the Mandela World Human Rights Moot.

The key for many observers here, of course, is performance in the Grand Slam competitions.3Grand Slams are class-leading competitions that attract a substantial number of teams and are perceived to have a particular prestige not just due to scale and number of teams participating but also the quality of the organisation, participants, judging, and surrounding events. They currently comprise the Jessup, Vis, Vis East, Price, International Criminal Court, and Frankfurt moots: see The International Moot Court Compendium: https://www.internationalmoots.org. Save for one year, Singapore has featured in at least two Grand Slam championship finals every year since 2015. This season got off to a positive start when SMU won the Frankfurt Investment Arbitration Moot, with the 2022 edition featuring a record 105 teams. Shortly after, SMU won the Vis East Moot, adding to its chip in 2015 and creating a four-way tie for most tournament championships despite the school debuting much later than the other record holders. This result also gave SMU tournament leader status in four of the six Grand Slams: Vis East (two championships; tied with two other universities); International Criminal Court (four championships); Price (four championships); and Frankfurt (two championships, tied with NUS).

All eyes, however, were on the two biggest Grand Slams in the form of the Jessup and Vis. Last season, NUS reached its 12th championship final of the Jessup after a 17-year finals hiatus, while SMU reached its third Vis championship final in six years. In the 2022 edition of the Jessup, Singapore again featured in the championship final – this time it was SMU, making its third Jessup final in eight years – but the country’s winless streak continued as the larger cup went to Harvard, the university that had started the moot more than 60 years ago. Notably, the SMU team won a record 10 awards: three Best Oralist titles in the preliminaries, three Best Oralist titles in the advanced rounds, the championship finalist award, and all Best Memorial prizes (Evans, Dillard, and Baxter). In the Vis, SMU was unable to repeat the championship final feat, bowing out at the quarterfinals – but it bore the distinction of being the only Asian team in the advanced stages of a competition that saw almost 400 teams participating.

In terms of accolades for best written submissions and best oral submissions, there were many; SMU and NUS won a combined 43 best oralist prizes and a combined 10 best memorial prizes. At the national level, Singapore came close to matching its world record of most championship finals by a country in a season – the tally was 12 for this season, one short of the record set the season before. At the university level, SMU finally broke its own world record of five international championships in a season (set in 2014/15 and 2016/17) when it won the Asia Cup to make it six championships for the season.4At this point, SMU is in the Computational Law final, but the match has been delayed. All things considered, this has been another good season for Singapore, and more broadly, our teams have adapted very well to the virtual format in the past couple of years. Almost all competitions will revert to the in-person format next season, but we can expect our teams to be ready.

Table #1: Results of all notable international moot competitions in 2021/22

Moot edition Venue No of teams Singapore results/rank
16th LAWASIA Arbitration Online ~ 15 SMU: 2nd-runners-up
NUS: Champions
14th Foreign Direct Investment Arbitration Seoul (online) ~ 80 SMU: Champions (Budapest); 9th (Intl)
NUS: 4th (Intl)
14th Frankfurt Investment Arbitration Frankfurt (online) ~ 110 SMU: Champions
NUS: QF
20th Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Hong Kong (online) ~ 100 SMU: Champions
NUS: NA
14th Price Media Law Oxford (online) ~ 90 SMU: Championship finalist (Asia-Pac); 2nd-runners-up (Intl)
NUS: 6th (Asia-Pac)
6th Fletcher International Insolvency Law Chicago (online) ~ 20 SMU: QF
NUS: Championship finalist
26th Stetson Environmental Law Gulfport ~ 60 SMU: Championship finalist (Southeast Asia); 2nd-runners-up (Intl)
NUS: QF (Southeast Asia)
20th Oxford Intellectual Property Oxford ~ 60 SMU: 2nd-runners-up
NUS: Prelims
19th Vis East Arbitration Hong Kong (online) ~ 150 SMU: Champions
NUS: 2nd-runners-up
63rd Jessup International Law Washington DC (online) ~ 650 SMU: Championship finalist
NUS: Round of 32
29th Vis Arbitration Vienna (online) ~ 350 SMU: QF
NUS: Prelims
13th Sarin Air Law Online ~ 40 SMU: Best Respondent
NUS: NA
10th PAX Conflict of Laws Paris ~ 30 SMU: 2nd-runners-up
NUS: NA
14th International Criminal Court Hague (online) ~ 80 SMU: QF
NUS: QF
8th HSF Competition Law London ~ 30 SMU: NA
NUS: Champions
20th Jackson WTO Geneva ~ 80 SMU: 2nd-runners-up (Asia-Pacific); 2nd-runners-up (Intl)
NUS: Champions (Asia-Pacific); Prelims (Intl)
22nd International Maritime Law Arbitration Singapore (online) ~ 20 SMU: 2nd-runners-up
NUS: Championship finalist
8th Nuremberg Nuremberg (online) ~100 SMU: QF
NUS: NA
14th Mandela Human Rights Geneva ~ 80 SMU: Champions
NUS: Prelims
5th Perera Colombo (online) ~ 20 SMU: Champions
NUS: NA
23rd Asia Cup Tokyo (online) ~ 40 SMU: Champions
NUS: NA
3rd Computational Law Canberra (online) ~ 20 SMU: TBC
NUS: NA

Table #2: Singapore’s best finish in Grand Slams in last 10 years5Between 2010 to 2012, there was one Grand Slam win (2010 Price, SMU) and one Grand Slam 2nd-runner-up finish (2011 Jessup, NUS). SMU were also International Exhibition winners in the 2011 and 2012 Jessup and Asia-Pacific 1st-runner-up for the Vis East in 2012.

Table #3: Singapore’s best finish in other major moots in last 10 years

 

Singapore was in the 2021 (NUS) and 2022 (SMU) championship finals of the Jessup.

SMU and NUS share the tournament record for most championships in the Frankfurt Investment Arbitration Moot.

SMU won the Vis East a second time, and now holds the tournament record for most championships. SMU had made the championship final in Vienna for the third time last season.

SMU won Singapore’s first championship at the Mandela World Human Rights Moot in Geneva.

Endnotes

Endnotes
1 The previous reports can be found in “Covid-19 and the 2020/21 international moots season”, Law Gazette, September 2021. Each moot season corresponds to the windows of the moots covered.
2 Mediation or negotiation competitions are excluded from this recap, though our schools continue to excel in such competitions.
3 Grand Slams are class-leading competitions that attract a substantial number of teams and are perceived to have a particular prestige not just due to scale and number of teams participating but also the quality of the organisation, participants, judging, and surrounding events. They currently comprise the Jessup, Vis, Vis East, Price, International Criminal Court, and Frankfurt moots: see The International Moot Court Compendium: https://www.internationalmoots.org.
4 At this point, SMU is in the Computational Law final, but the match has been delayed.
5 Between 2010 to 2012, there was one Grand Slam win (2010 Price, SMU) and one Grand Slam 2nd-runner-up finish (2011 Jessup, NUS). SMU were also International Exhibition winners in the 2011 and 2012 Jessup and Asia-Pacific 1st-runner-up for the Vis East in 2012.

Associate Professor
LLB; LLM
Associate Dean (Student and Alumni Affairs)
Director of Moots
Singapore Management University