NUS Jessup Team Members Rank Among Top 10 Oralists at International Jessup Moots

After winning the Singapore National Round earlier this year, the NUS Jessup team represented Singapore at the International Rounds of the Philip C. Jessup Moot Court Competition from 27 March to 2 April 2016 in Washington D.C. The team comprised Hairul Hakkim ’16, Mehaerun Simaa ’16, Victor Leong ’16, Joshua Hiew ’17, and Victor Yao ’17.

The International Rounds of the Jessup competition comprise four preliminary rounds, followed by a series of knock-out rounds for the top 32 teams. The team qualified for the knock-out rounds as the Top Team in the Preliminary Rounds, eventually making it to the Round of 16. The team was named also the Best Overall Applicant Team for the best combined Applicant memorial and oralist scores; and had three speakers in the top 10 individual oralist rankings: Joshua Hiew was ranked 1st, Victor Leong 2nd, and Victor Yao in 7th place. Hairul Hakkim and Mehaerun Simaa had comparable speaker scores but were ineligible for speaker prizes.

Speaking after the International Rounds, the team unanimously felt that although each member had such diverse strengths, it was ultimately the team synergy and composition that made their Jessup experience so meaningful. The team also expressed their immense gratitude towards the dedication of their coaches – Associate Prof Lim Lei Theng ’92, Alvin Yap ’12, Chin Jincheng ’13, and Associate Prof Eleanor Wong ’85, all themselves Jessup alumni.

It is the team’s hope that their Jessup experience will spur more students towards the experience of international moots, as it was the craziest, most intense, but also most fulfilling experience in their Law School lives.

The Philip C. Jessup Moot Court Competition is the largest moot court competition in the world, comprising some 600 teams from about 90 jurisdictions. The International Rounds are attended by about 130 teams, each team having either won or finished strongly in their respective National Rounds. The competition this year pertained to cutting-edge international law topics, including the admissibility of illegally-obtained evidence before the International Court of Justice, human rights law on terrorist detentions, the developing international law norms on cyber operations, and the legality of mass surveillance.