Media

HKU Jessup Mooting Team Wins Top Memorial Prize

15 May 2006

 

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The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is very proud to announce that a team of law students won the 2006 Baxter Prize for the Best Applicant's Memorial at the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, which was concluded in April 2006 in Washington, DC. The HKU team included law students Zabrina Lau (PCLL), Tim Parker (LLB 2), Kay Seto (LLB 3), Yvonne Shi (LLB 4) and Megan Yeung (PCLL). The Prize is named after His Excellency Richard R Baxter, a distinguished judge of the International Court of Justice.

Organized by the International Law Students Association (ILSA), the Jessup Moot is the most prestigious competition of its kind in the world. The international round attracts 100 teams from over 80 countries, which were among the best of over 500 teams that competed earlier in regional rounds. The moot is based on a hypothetical dispute between two sovereign states and each participating school represents the two parties to the dispute in the International Court of Justice. The problem this year concerned bilateral investment treaties, state responsibility for the activities of public-private joint ventures, and the human rights of indigenous people.

As part of the competition, all participating teams must research and submit a 12,000 word written submission (called a 'memorial') for each of the applicant and respondent parties. Out of the 400 memorials submitted by law schools from over 80 countries around the world, Memorial Awards in the Alona Evans Competition and Hardy C Dillard Competition are given to the best 5 teams in each competition. Among these winners, the best will be chosen for the Baxter Prize, which is the highest award for the written memorial in the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. The HKU team received not only the Baxter Prize, which means the overall quality of its memorials is the best in the world, but also the Alona Evans Competition Award and Hardy C Dillard Competition Award, making HKU the only law school to win awards in all three memorial competitions.

It was the first time for the HKU team to win the Baxter Award. Mr Simon Young, Coach of the team and Chairman of the Faculty's International Competitions Committee, stated that the awards in all three competitions demonstrated "the team's proficiency in both the applicants' and respondents' memorials and overall excellence in written advocacy." According to Young, "the formula to success is to ensure an early completion date of the first draft so as to have sufficient time for revisions to be made by the students. These are values and practices we try to engender in all our students." One of the international round memorial judges assessed the team's memorial in these words: "crystal clear, organized, easy to follow, easy to understand…excellent, a pleasure to read, graceful and articulate".

The team's achievements this year would not have been possible without the support and advice of their coach and other faculty advisors including Mr Raymond Pierce, Teaching Consultant, Ms Kapai Puja, Senior Teaching Assistant, Ms Carole Petersen, Associate Professor, Ms Suzannah Linton, Associate Professor, and Professor Hurst Hannum.

The Faculty of Law, HKU, would like to thank Sweet & Maxwell Asia/ Thomson for their kind and generous support of the Jessup mooting programme in Hong Kong.

The winning memorials and photos from the competition can be found on the HKU Faculty of Law website:http://www.law.hku.hk/faculty/. More information about the Jessup competition can be found at http://www.ilsa.org.

For media enquiries, please contact Ellie Yung of the Faculty of Law by phone at 2859 2919 or via ellie.yung@hku.hk or Ms. Cherry Cheung, Senior Press Officer HKU at 2859 2606.

Photo caption:

The HKU team (from left): Megan Yeung (PCLL), Tim Parker (LLB 2), Kay Seto (LLB 3), and Yvonne Shi (LLB 4) and Zabrina Lau (PCLL)