A team of Kent Law students has secured a top ten finish in the 10th LAWASIA International Moot Competition 2015 held in Australia, coming sixth out of 19 teams.
Final year Law LLB students Orestis Anastasiades, Elena Savvidou and Lizzie Virgo were the only team from Europe represented in the competition hosted this year by The College of Law in Sydney. The other 18 teams were drawn from institutions across the southern hemisphere, including from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, China, Japan, Indian, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Brazil, Kenya and Australia.
This year’s moot problem centred on international law and involved a dispute over an ancient stone statue on display in a museum in Malaysia and which the Government of Nepal requested be returned. All parties agreed to resolve the issue under the Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration i-Arbitration Rules.
Kent Law School Director of Mooting Per Laleng said: ‘This is an impressive performance given that they were mooting in Art Law comprising a heady mix of international public and private law, Nepalese law & Australian law!’
Orestis, Elena and Lizzie flew out to Australia last week, accompanied by the School’s Deputy Director of Mooting Joe Thompson, to compete in the international rounds of the annual moot organised by LAWASIA. LAWASIA is an international organisation of lawyers’ associations, individual lawyers, judges and legal academics in the Asia Pacific region; the chair of its Moot Standing Committee is Kent alumnus Raphael Tay, now a partner at Chooi & Company in Kualar Lumpur.
Kent Law School runs an intensive and wide-ranging mooting programme; in recent years the Law School has entered teams in the OUP/BPP Moot, the English Speaking Union Moot, the Jessup International Law Moot, the Oxford French Law Moot, and the UK Student Law Association Moot.