The 64th Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition was held in Washington, D.C., USA, from April 8 to 15, 2023. It was the first time in the recent four years that the competition had been held offline, and the number of competing schools hit a new record high. After the fierce qualifying round among roughly 700 law schools from 100 countries and regions, a total of 138 teams gathered for the “International Law Olympics”. The team of China University of Political Science and Law (the CUPL team) finally advanced to the semifinals in this global competition. It was after 30 years that a Chinese team had made to the semifinals of the global competition again, and indeed a historic breakthrough.
Prof. Lan Hua from the School of International Law, CUPL was the team’s coach.The CUPL team comprises Cheng Yupeng, Ruan Haoyang, Wan Fuyang, Wang Hailun (undergraduates) and Wang Yixuan (postgraduate). After six-month rigorous training, our team took the third place out of 58 teamsand won the Best Memorial in the qualifying round (the mainland of China) . Cheng Yupeng and Ruan Haoyang took the sixth and eighth place on Top Oralist Chinese ranking respectively. Winning the Best Memorial, Best Oralist and Best Team in the qualifying round, the team of CUPL successfully advanced to the international rounds.
The team of CUPL delivered a more brilliant performance in theinternational rounds. Winning all four run-off rounds, our team advanced to the Round of 32 as the fifth-highest-ranked team, the best record the team had achieved.
In the subsequent elimination rounds, our team demonstrated greater strength and responded flexibly in each round. The research and debate abilities of the CUPL team gained unanimous recognition from the judges andwith professional oral statement and profound legal knowledge the team advanced to the semifinal. Observing the JESSUP rule that teams from a single jurisdiction cannot be paired in the championship round, our team and the team of Peking University, both from China, was paired together in the semifinal.
CUPL team was officially set up in November, 2022. The members had overcome myriad difficulties, prepared the competition industriously and ardently by conducting legal research, case studies, memorial writing, and oral pleadingstraining, and studied frontier issues in international law profoundly. All of their efforts paid off as they presented excellent oral and written pleadings in the competition and won extraordinary feat. The excellent performance of CUPL in this competition is a good proof of the effectiveness of our moot court training model and international legal talent cultivation, and a great improvement of our reputation and influence in this competition.
As the most prestigious moot court competition in the world, Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition attracts top law schools around the world every year. The competition simulates fictional disputes before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), covering a wide range of fields, and as the competition topics closely follow international hotspots, this competition is of great practical significance.
Extended Reading
Hosted by the International Law Students Association (ILSA), Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, also known as the “International Law Olympics”, is the world’s oldest and largest international moot competition. The Jessup Competition has been held for 64 years since its conception in 1959. Since our first participation in 2006, the team of CUPL has scored significant achievements, and constantly renews our records. From 2008 to 2023, the statistics of CUPL team were extraordinary:
Advanced to the international rounds for nine times
Advanced to the round of 32 for four times
Taking the second (2018) and third place (2016) in Memorial Rankings
Third-best-team in Overall ranking (2016)
Third place of Best Respondent Memorials in the International Rounds (2018)
Hardy C. Dillard Awards for Best Combined Memorials (2016 and 2018)
Alona E. Evans Award for Best Memorial (2016)
Seven students won Top 100 Oralists in the International Rounds, and one ranked the 18th (Best record for Chinese Oralist so far)
