My Moot Court Experience

張貼日期：Dec 31, 2015 1:2:2 AM

Jane Tsao

Last year I took a class called Case Study on International Law. This course is about a preparation for Jessup and Red Cross International Humanitarian Law moot court competition. After having a long discussion with my professor, I chose to participate in Jessup moot court competition which involves arguing a hypothetical case on issues of International Law. What makes the competition more challenging is the whole process must be in English. It was Jessup moot court competition which made my university life colorful and unforgettable.

All of the participating teams received the Compromis on September 2, 2014. When we got the Compromis, we had to read through the facts in 24 pages. After finishing reading, we started to find many legal resources, for example, Vienna Convention, law cases, law journals and so on. The papers we read were all written in English. Even though my team members and I had taken International Law class when we were in our second year, it was still a big challenge for us to do research on legal issues as well as related theories, and then make a brief case, which includes the summary of facts, issues, application and conclusion.

In order to get more resources, I went to the National Center Library and CCU Library very often. Many classmates even said, “Jane, we think you can live in the library because you have spent most of your time in it. You have to take a rest or your health will be bad.” I knew my friends cared about me, but actually everything they told me just went in one ear and out the other. It was around November last year, and we had prepared for the competition for about 3 months. During that time, I was under a lot of pressure because I had to prepare for my midterm exams and this contest. I drank a cup of bubble milk tea every day at that time. Eventually I gained 6 kilograms when the competition was finished. I could not imagine how come I drank so much bubble mike tea. And I was annoyed by my weight gain. However, if it had not been Jessup, I would not have gotten to know more about myself. I found out that the way for me to release my pressure was eating food.

In this competition, we had to represent Applicant and Respondent. We had to stand in the perspective of the applicant and respondent and defend our party. This really made me crazy and I felt that I was completely insane, because the issues and the points always conflicted with each other. Our team members also practiced by ourselves before the real competition.

When the real competition came, we had to face teams from other schools, for example, National Taiwan University, National Cheng Kung University, Tunghai University, Soochow University. All the participants came from law departments and their English abilities were also excellent. It seemed hard for us to win the game. Those universities have abundant resources and the students tend to have many more experiences than we do. Fortunately, we defeated National Cheng Kung University. In this round, our team represented Respondent. Our professor and my team members elected me to be the defender. Facing the three judges and opponents, I had butterflies in my stomach. But I had to show that I was not frightened. I told myself respectively, “I am the best. I am the lawyer. I have to win the case.” I tried to act like a lawyer on the stage. I answered the judges’ sharp questions and attacked the opponents’ arguments. Finally, we won this round. I was very happy and proud that we could beat Cheng Kung University.

From this competition I learned some valuable lessons: I learned how to make a brief case, write an English memorial, defend a case, and I also got to know more about myself. Most of all, I realized that the more efforts I put on the work, the more gains I will get from it.