NUS Law wins the John H Jackson WTO Moot Competition Asia Regional Round 2022!

(L to R): Jack Hu LLM ’22, Ang Kai Le ’22, Samuel Koh ’22, Gerry Zhang ’22

We are delighted to announce that during the John H Jackson WTO Moot Competition Asia Regional Round held online between 17 to 20 February 2022, NUS Law won despite a series of unrelated Covid-19 infections that affected 3 out of 4 of the team members, during the lead-up and throughout the competition finals!

The winners of the NUS Law WTO Moot Team 2022 consisted of:
Jack Hu LLM ’22
Ang Kai Le ’22
Samuel Koh ’22
Gerry Zhang ’22

Jack clinched Best Speaker in the Prelims and Samuel won Best Speaker in the Finals.

NUS Law had a hard route, meeting the top teams of Singapore Management University (SMU) and National Taiwan University (NTU) in the Preliminaries, faced Peking University in the Semi-Finals, and finally faced our opponents from NTU once again, for the Final Round.

Like our students who participated and managed to emerge champions in both local and international competitions these past few years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the NUS Law WTO Moot team overcame a lot of difficulties this year too.

Firstly, because of Covid-19 restrictions and some members having to protect vulnerable family members, most of the work and training had to be online. Two weeks before the moot, one speaker came down with Covid-19, followed by another who tested positive as well, and neither could train during their recovery. Finally, on the first day of the moot, Thursday 17 Feb 2022, one of the team members tested positive but fortunately, he only had mild symptoms of a slight fever and a cough and could moot (and won Best Speaker) despite those handicaps.

Even with all these difficulties, the team pulled through in good spirits while supporting each other immensely. As it was predicted that there was a good chance that team members could fall ill (though no one predicted that 3 out of 4 would go down in the critical two weeks period), everyone was cross-trained and ready to step into any breach. Their coach, Associate Professor Michael Ewing-Chow ’95 commended the team for each and everyone’s willingness to do whatever was necessary for the group to succeed.

This is the second time NUS Law has won the John H Jackson WTO Moot Competition Asia Regional Round in the last 3 years, but this time more challenges were faced. While NUS Law also won the competition during the Circuit Breaker in 2020, no one fell ill and every other team in Asia was also in isolation. This time, NUS Law was the only team to field speakers who were actually ill with Covid-19 during the moot rounds.

“With 3 out of 4 members afflicted with COVID-19, the moot was a formidable challenge. Fortunately, and with the aid of medication and some sick jokes, the team pulled together, and our preparation paid off as we progressed through four oral rounds to clinch the win with two of our speakers winning the Best Speaker Award, for both Preliminaries and Finals.

The team would like to thank our coaches Prof Michael and Ben, peers and the NUS Law alumni who took the time out of their busy schedules to help us. Special thanks to Prof Michael for assisting us with the antiviral software pun, venue set-up and for providing the necessary equipment,” said the team when interviewed about the win.

The team would like to thank the following people for acting as Panelists for the training sessions and providing invaluable advice about mooting. From WTO moot teams of past years, Tan Pei Wei ’17, Samuel Lee ’19 (Best Speaker Geneva Rounds 2018), Colin Wu ’18, Suah Boon Choong ’18 (Best Speaker Asian Regionals 2018), Sandra Tan ’20, Melinna Teo ’20, Stephanie Sim ’20, Tan Wen Qi ’20 (Best Speaker Asian Regionals and Geneva Rounds 2020), Jayesh Melvani ’22 (Best Speaker Asian Regionals 2021), Jonathan Ng ’22, Sherlyn Lim ’21 and Elizabeth Chin ’22. Other people who also helped coach the team and panel for the training were Jordan Ng ’22, Ethan Song ’22, Suraj Bagalkoti ’22, Bay Jia Wei ’22, Natalie Poh ’22, Chong Fu Shan ’22, Fuad Johari ’13.

Special mention must be made of Benedict Teow ’19 (WTO Moot Team 2018), A/P Michael’s co-coach, who has coached 4 batches of WTO Moot teams to great success. Despite work commitments, Benedict was almost omnipresent for all the trainings while generously offering his time, advice, and encouragement to the team overall these difficult months and weeks.

As Asian champions, the team will be proceeding to the Geneva Round which may possibly be held in person at the WTO later in the year for the first time since this pandemic started. Congratulations to our WTO Moot Competition Asia Regional Round winners!