York’s Osgoode Hall Law School mooting team proved last year’s win at the Willem C. Vis International Arbitration Moot – called the “Olympic Games of mooting” by Osgoode Dean Patrick Monahan – was no fluke. The 2005 team reached the quarter finals, taking home three other awards, in one of the strongest showings of the 151 international entries, many of which were from the top law schools in the world.
The Osgoode team of Rebecca Huang, Jennifer MacArthur, Geoff Mowatt, David Rosner, Maria Sirivar and Clara Tse was among three Canadian teams to reach the quarter finals of the 2005 Vis Moot, which took place the week of March 18 in Vienna, Austria.
“The strong performance by this year’s team shows the depth of talent and high level of commitment of Osgoode students and their instructors,” said Monahan. “They are truly among the brightest and best in the world.”
Rosner and Sirivar both also received oralist awards – a great achievement considering there were 500 individual competitors vying for the honour. The Osgoode team, coached by Associate Dean Janet Walker and alumna Fiona Hickman (LLB ’04) from last year’s first-place team, also received an award for its Claimant’s Memorandum. Walker said few other teams received three awards and congratulated all of the students on their “wonderful” performance.
Monahan noted that this is the third year in a row that Osgoode mooters have shone at the Vis Moot. In addition to last year’s victory by Hickman and her Osgoode teammates Stephen Vander Stoep, Christopher Hickey, Gregory Smith, Jonathan Hood and Tala Zarbafi, another Osgoode team made it into the Round of 16 two years ago.
“We have now established ourselves as the leading team in the world and students from other schools now regularly attend the Osgoode rounds in order to see how top-flight mooters perform,” Monahan said.
Of the eight teams in this year’s quarter-finals, three were Canadian, the other two being McGill and Queen’s. Ottawa reached the Round of 32. Each of the four Canadian teams to advance to the elimination rounds received oralist and/or memorial awards.
The Vis International Arbitration Moot, in which top law schools from dozens of countries simulate legal argument in an international commercial dispute, is the largest and most prestigious competition of its kind in the world.
The Vis Moot is named for Willem Vis, world-recognized expert in international commercial transactions and dispute settlement procedures. From Utrecht in the Netherlands, Vis led several United Nations initiatives in the area of international commercial law.