WILLEM C. VIS (EAST)
INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION MOOT
Hong Kong
General Information
The Willem C. Vis (East) International Commercial Arbitration Moot is a competition for law students from all countries. It runs in parallel with the Willem C Vis Moot in Vienna, is based on the same ideals, using the same problem and substantial identical rules. The Moot involves a dispute arising out of a contract of sale between two countries. At least one country is a party to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The contract provides that any dispute that might arise is to be settled by arbitration in Danubia, a country that has enacted the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration and is a party to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The arbitral rules to be applied change from year to year.
Dates and location
The Problem is distributed on the first Friday in October. It is distributed by posting on the Moot web site: www.cisg.law.pace.edu/vis.html. A memorandum supporting the position of the claimant is due early in December. Each participating team is sent a copy of the memorandum for claimant of one of the other teams in the Moot. A memorandum for respondent is prepared in response to the memorandum received, and is due in mid-February. The oral arguments take place in Hong Kong shortly before the Vienna oral arguments. The general rounds of the oral arguments take place at the Graduate Law Centre, Chinese University, Central, Hong Kong. Elimination rounds among the highest ranking teams take place on Saturday, culminating in the final argument on Sunday. The Moot closes with an awards banquet following the final argument.
Registration
Registration is accomplished by completion and submission of the registration form, which may be done at any time prior to the date for submission of the memorandum for claimant. Registration is confirmed by payment of the registration fee of US$800 or HK$6,250. The registration fee must be paid prior to the date for submission of the memorandum for claimant.
Communications
Inquiries about the Vis (East) Moot and participation of a team or as an arbitrator should be addressed to info@cisgmoot.org .
Willem Conrnelis Vis
1924-1993
A world-renowned expert in international commercial transactions and dispute settlement procedures, Willem Vis was born in Utrecht in the Netherlands and read law, economics and philosophy at Leyden, Nijmegen, Strasbourg and Magdelen College, Oxford. He graduated from Leyden University and Nijmegen University in the Netherlands.
Professor Vis began to work for European co-operation in 1957 as a member of the Council of Europe Secretariat, in its human rights and legal affairs directorates, and later, in 1965, he became Deputy Secretary-General of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) in Rome. In 1968, he moved to the United Nations Secretariat in New York, where he became Senior Legal Officer, then Chief of the International Trade Law Branch of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, and Secretary of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).
He served as Executive Secretary of the Vienna Diplomatic Conference that created the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. He helped craft the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules.
He was Representative of the Netherlands to the UN Commission on International Trade Law and served as Chair of its Working Group on International Payments.
Professor Vis served on the faculty of the Pace University School of Law from 1980 until his death in 1993. At Pace, he continued to participate in the development of international commercial law, and was founding director of the Pace Institute of International Commercial Law.
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