INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION 1/3LY
IN CONVERSATION WITH LOUISE BARRINGTON 35
LOUI SE So we decided to limit numbers at the Hong Kong moot. At first we liked 64 teams but the next year the numbers rose to 83 and they steadily increased to the point whenwe said that our absolutemaximumwould be 100. And nowwe’ve even exceeded that, with 107 for Vis East 12. But each year I say, absolutely nomore! And the growth has slowed. ALEC The growth seems tomirror the rise in the number of students who are interested in international arbitration. There has been an increase in the number of schools which offer arbitration as amodule. Do you knowhowmany of the teams participate in themoot as part of their course? LOUI SE It’s interesting that you ask that question because we do ask the students to tell us during the week by filling out feedback forms. They tell us what kind of support they receive from their schools with tackling the Vis East problems andwhether it’s from teachers or just frompeople that they knowwho are willing to help. We also ask about what sort of financial and professional support they receive in attending themoot andwhether they receive any formal course credit for participating. It’s interesting to compare the different approaches and levels of support by academic institutions. For instance, this year we have a team that enteredwithout a coach and reached the quarter finals. On the other hand, there’s also a team that has 13 people coaching it. While some of the universities award credit for themoot, plenty of teams do it completelywithout credit or any assistance from their institution. Another thing to note is that there is awhole culture, and indeed an economy, which has grown up around us in the formof pre-moots. Pre-moots are changing the nature of the VisMoots, bymaking it far more professional. The enormous transition that we used to see over the four days of the general rounds has inmany cases has disappeared. By the time the participants come to us, many teams have been to two, three, four, or even five pre-moots. Some of themhave done 60 arguments against other schools before they come to Hong Kong. Conversely, there are also the teams that I mentionedwho not only don’t have a coach but they certainly don’t havemoney to be running around the world participating in pre-moots and so they are always at a disadvantage. They have to be really fabulous and reallymotivated to be able succeed. Obviously these people are.
ALEC This tallies withmy experience of sitting as an arbitrator for Vis East. This year in Hong Kong, I sawa very, very slick and polished team froma US University on their first day and I asked them in the feedback howmany pre-moots they had been involved in. They said they had done three. LOUI SE Three pre-mootsmeans at least six to twelve arguments. ALEC Exactly. So they have no notes and they’ve already reached the point that youwould expect people to get to by the end of the week, if they’ve progressed that far at all. They are coming here to argue, rather than to really develop. There’s not much you can really do about that because it’s just the way that they are doing their prep. But there are lots of resources going into it. LOUI SE There are tremendous resources going into it. I’m finding some arbitrators who say “Well I’mnot going to come to Hong Kong because I’ve been doing teamwork inmy country” or “I’ve been to three or four pre-moots around the region already so I’ma little petered out now, sorry”. Or, you get some teams that say “Well I can’t debate against this teambecause I got them in a pre-moot so I saw that argument.” So they’re conscious even before they have arrived. My own feeling is if they judged a team in a pre-moot, unless they have a problemwith debating themagain during the Vis East, then I just can’t do anything about it. I don’t have enough arbitrators to deal with that, especiallywhenwe don’t know about it until they arrive in Hong Kong! ALEC I can completely understand. Speaking of resources and the explosion of pre-moots, I can imagine that law firms have got more involved. Do you knowwhat percentage of teams get support of one sort or another, like coaching or perhaps financial assistance, fromdisputes teams in law firms? LOUI SE I think that’s happeningmore often now, at least in countries which have an arbitration culture. However, it really depends upon the culture and systembecause coming from somewhere like Cambodia, for example, you could probably count on one hand the number of lawyers there that have actually done an international arbitration.
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