General Information
Important Note for Vis East 18 and 2nd VVE
The Vis East Moot limits the number of participating teams.
Registration begins, on-line only, on Friday 25th September 2020 at 12 noon, Hong Kong time. Be sure to read this year's Vis East Moot Rules carefully.
The Willem C. Vis East International Commercial Arbitration Moot is a competition for law students from all countries. It runs in parallel with the Willem C Vis Moot in Vienna, and is based on the same ideals, using the same problem and substantially identical Rules. The Moot involves a dispute arising out of a contract of sales of goods between two countries . At least one country is a 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 used change from year to year. This year's rules are from the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration.
Dates and location
The Problem is distributed on the first Friday in October. It is distributed by posting on the Moot web site: www.vismoot.pace.edu and on this site. A memorandum supporting the position of the claimant is due early in December. Each participating team is sent a copy of the memorandum for claimant of one of the other teams in the Moot. A memorandum for respondent is prepared in response to the memorandum received, and is due in mid-February. Whilst the oral arguments ordinarily take place in Hong Kong, shortly before the Vienna oral arguments, this year the Vis East Moot will be held virtually again. The opening ceremony takes place on Sunday evening, Hong Kong time. The general rounds of the oral arguments take place from Monday to Thursday. Elimination rounds among the highest ranking teams take place on Friday and Saturday, culminating in the final argument on Sunday. The Moot closes with a closing ceremony, following the final argument.
Registration
Provisional registration begins, on-line only, on September 25, 2020. Schools upon registration must firstly pay the non-refundable upfront deposit, and upon receiving a confirmed place must pay the registration fee as directed, and submit a memorandum for claimant. The fee must be paid prior to the date for submission of the memorandum for claimant. Schools which do not complete all steps will be treated as having dropped out. (See the Rules.) Communications Inquiries about the Vis East Moot (either teams or arbitrators) should be addressed to info@cisgmoot.org.
Willem Cornelius Vis 1924-1993
A world-renowned expert in international commercial transactions and dispute settlement procedures, Willem Vis was born in Utrecht in the Netherlands and read law, economics and philosophy at Leyden, Nijmegen, Strasbourg and Magdelen College, Oxford. He graduated from Leyden University and Nijmegen University in the Netherlands.
Professor Vis began to work for European co-operation in 1957 as a member of the Council of Europe Secretariat, in its human rights and legal affairs directorates, and later, in 1965, he became Deputy Secretary-General of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) in Rome. In 1968, he moved to the United Nations Secretariat in New York, where he became Senior Legal Officer, then Chief of the International Trade Law Branch of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, and Secretary of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).
He served as Executive Secretary of the Vienna Diplomatic Conference that created the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. He helped craft the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. He was Representative of the Netherlands to the UN Commission on International Trade Law and served as Chair of its Working Group on International Payments.
Professor Vis served on the faculty of the Pace University School of Law from 1980 until his death in 1993. At Pace, he continued to participate in the development of international commercial law, and was founding director of the Pace Institute of International Commercial Law.
