The University of Macau’s (UM) Faculty of Law (FLL) Moot Team won the Best New Team Award at the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition held from 31 March to 6 April 2013, in Washington DC, USA. This was the first time that UM’s Moot Team participated in the competition. It stood out from all the new teams that had participated in this competition for three times or less.

The UM team consisted of five international law students, namely Yin Qingsi, Zheng Jiajia, Yuan Xingxing Tang Yanyan, and Wang Yuna. The team was coached by Prof. Muruga Perumal Ramaswamy, associate professor of law and area coordinator of the International Law Master Program, and Dr.Sten Verhoeven, senior instructor in FLL.

The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, which was launched 54 years ago, started as an advocacy competition among major law schools in the US like Harvard and Columbia in 1959. It has since grown to be the world’s largest and most prestigious competition with participants from over 550 law schools in more than 80 countries. In many law schools around the world the Jessup Competition is included in the curriculum for law students to choose for credits and produce written and oral pleadings.

The competition emulates the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. Moot teams act as legal counsels for the two sides of a fictional legal dispute concerning some contemporary issues in the international law. The dispute for this year’s competition was related to the factual and legal consequences of climate change on statehood, migration, and sovereign lending. The competition is judged by real judges including the current sitting judges of the International Court of Justice.

Participation in the competition involves a very intense preparation for more than six months during which time the UM team produced two written memorials representing the positions of both sides of the dispute. Subsequently, they underwent a continuous training on the oral pleadings in the moot court facilities of FLL. Although the participants did not have any previous experience of mooting in English, the systematic training and the facilities at UM effectively prepared them to match international teams from around the world. The winning UM team, with their rich experience of mooting with international teams, is planning to organise some activities for the benefit of other law students at UM through the student-run mooting and advocacy society in the faculty. FLL will continue to train its students for international moot competitions in the future.


Should you have any enquiries about the information, please feel free to contact the Information Executives Ms.Lei or Ms Fok at(853)8397 4325 or  prs.media@um.edu.mo or visit UM webpage www.umac.mo.