From March to November 2021, a team consisting of six students from the Law Faculty participated in the national and global rounds of the FDI Moot competition. This is the first time that MUST Law Faculty teamed up and competed in this prominent global event.
The FDI Moot is a prestigious global competition in the field of investment arbitration, which focuses on the use of the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) procedure to simulate the resolution of investment disputes between investors and host countries. Together with the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition and the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, the FDI Moot is one of the three most prestigious moot competitions in the world. Introduced to China by the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA), the competition aims to enhance the training of foreign legal talent, improve the English language skills of Chinese legal professionals and improve their ability to participate in international legal practice. Chinese national round of this competition, the FDI Moot Shenzhen, was held for the first time by the SCIA in 2020.
The 2021 FDI Moot Shenzhen was held on 31 July and 1 August and received great attention and active participation from 42 universities across China, including MUST. The event was held online and involved nearly 300 investment arbitration experts from 57 countries. The global round was also conducted online and was joined by over 150 teams. After a few days of intensive participation from 28 to 31 October, the team from MUST Law Faculty ranked 71st overall globally.
Our team members include four master students from the International Economic and Commercial Law program, Huang Hai, Xu Xiaofan, Jiang Xiaojie, and Xue Tian; and two undergraduate students, Lin Jiaqi and Zhu Junhua. Assistant Professor Wang Jia from the Law Faculty served as the coach. During the competition, team members also participated in a variety of events and seminars arranged by the organizing committee, including two rounds of online pre-moot with teams from Colombia and Egypt. Each pre-moot was almost like a mini-competition itself. During the seminars held online, team members had the opportunity to catch up with trends and new developments about investment arbitration by listening to leading scholars convened by authoritative research institutions, such as the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL).
As part of the Law Faculty’s series of practice-oriented teaching activities, participation in such high-level and challenging global competitions has indeed greatly expanded students’ international vision, sharpened their project-based learning skills, and laid the foundation for their future performance in international legal practice using English.
