A team of four College of Law students outmatched elite teams from prestigious law schools around the globe to claim two of the top awards at the 14th ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO Law (EMC2) this year.  Composed of Chih-Yu Lee, Ning Hsu, Li-Hsuan Wu, and Wan-Ling Lin, the 2016 NTU WTO Moot Court Team finished as a Semi-finalist in the Grand Final Oral Round and received the Award for the Highest Ranked Team from the Asia Pacific Region at the competition.  The international competition was held at the WTO headquarters in Geneva in early June.

Established in 2003, the EMC2 is organized by the European Law Students’ Association with the support of the WTO.  It is an annual competition in which teams of law students take part in simulated sessions of the WTO dispute settlement system.  In a moot court setting conducted entirely in English, competing teams formulate and argue fictive cases both for the complainant and the respondent before a panel made up of WTO and trade law experts.

Prof. Chang-Fa Lo and Prof. Tsai-Yu Lin founded the NTU WTO Moot Court Team and have since led students to compete in the EMC2 in up to 12 occasions.  In total, NTU has been able to advance from the Asia-Pacific Regional Round to compete in the Final Oral Round in Geneva seven times and, in 2008 and 2011, our students out-argued all other teams to win the competition’s Grand Final Oral Round.

This year’s team benefited from the support of former team members who shared their competition experience while providing invaluable instruction.  Making the most of its time to prepare, the team kicked off its training and practice regimen immediately after forming in September 2015.

Led by student coaches Yueh-Ping Yang and Chieh Chiu, the team began its preparations by first covering basic knowledge of WTO regulations and accumulating case analysis experience before moving on to practice theoretical opinions, procedural operations, shaping arguments, and drafting and revising legal complaints.  Finally, in the run-up to the competition, the team focused on honing its oral presentation skills and question-and-answer techniques and reaction time.

The team’s outstanding performance at this year’s EMC2 holds great significance for the nation, as Taiwan is an official member of the WTO and considers its active participation in the trade organization as a major foundation for international exchanges.