Second Leuven Pre-Moot coming up!  

THE ANNUAL WILLEM C. VIS
INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL
ARBITRATION MOOT

THE LEUVEN PRE-MOOT 

The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot is a competition for law students. Students from all countries are eligible. The Moot involves a dispute arising out of a contract of sale between two countries that are 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 rotate yearly among the arbitration rules of co-sponsors of the Moot.

Goal of the Vis Arbitral Moot. The goal of the Vis Arbitral Moot is to foster the study of international commercial law and arbitration for resolution of international business disputes through its application to a concrete problem of a client and to train law leaders of tomorrow in methods of alternative dispute resolution.

Structure of the Moot. The business community's marked preference for resolving international commercial disputes by arbitration is the reason this method of dispute resolution was selected as the clinical tool to train law students through two crucial phases: the writing of memorandums for claimant and respondent and the hearing of oral argument based upon the memorandums -- both settled by arbitral experts in the issues considered. The forensic and written exercises require determining questions of contract -- flowing from a transaction relating to the sale or purchase of goods under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and other uniform international commercial law -- in the context of an arbitration of a dispute under specified Arbitration Rules.

In the pairings of teams for each general round of the forensic and written exercises, every effort is made to have civil law schools argue against common law schools -- so each may learn from approaches taken by persons trained in another legal culture. Similarly, the teams of arbitrators judging each round are from both common law and civil law backgrounds.

13th Moot 2005-2006

For the 13th Moot the K.U. Leuven took part in the VIS moot court organised by Pace University with the following members:

               - Joris Beckers (Belgium)

               - Hannes Carpentier (Belgium)

               - Andries De Smet (Belgium)

               - Neil Peretz (USA)

Coaches: - Sofie Cools

               - Kristof Cox

               - Thalia Kruger

               - Bartlomiej Kurcz           

               - Iasson Yi

            (J. Beckers, H. Carpentier, J. Selby (Macquarie University), N. Peretz, A. De Smet, K. Cox)

The case for the 13th session has been prepared by the Pace University - Law School, which also provided for clarifications on specific issues.

This year the K.U. Leuven organises an international VIS pre-moot competition on Monday 3 and Tuesday 4 April 2006 with the following teams:

            - Ghent University (Belgium)

            - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)

            - Loyola - Los Angeles Law School (USA)

            - Macquarie University (Australia)

            - Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms - Universität Bonn (Germany)

            - Stetson University College of Law (USA)

            - University of Antwerp (Belgium)

  - University of Stellenbosch (South Africa)

            - Universität Rostock (Germany)

            - Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand)

The K.U. Leuven would also like to thank its sponsor:

        LIEDEKERKE . WOLTERS. WAELBROECK . KIRKPATRICK