Do you know the most highly acknowledged international arbitration moot in the world? It is “The Annual Willem C. Vis (East) International Commercial Arbitration Moot.” Students from prestigious schools in different countries get together and hold an arbitration moot on a conflict between imaginary companies. They make preparatory documents just like real lawyers, debate in English at an arbitration court to which a professional advocate has been invited, and vie for victory. Participants are mostly law school students, and at the competition held at the beginning of March, our university team, consisting mainly of undergraduate students from the School of Law, participated for the first time and had a close match with graduate students from world-leading universities such as Columbia and the University of Hong Kong.

　We adopted a spirit of starting from ‘square one.’ As mentioned, we were taking part in it for the first time and most of the team members were second-year students. We tried very hard to find a good way to make legal documents, share roles and debate effectively at the arbitration court, as everything was new to us. We studied carefully the preparatory documents of a university that had won the prize before, and took part in practice matches in New York many times. Despite being frustrated over and over again, we always tried to move forward, in search of what we needed.

　The motivating power behind us was the strong passion of each member, together with a fighting spirit and a sense of ambition. It was thanks to these that we were able to enjoy studying day and night and interpreting the difficult aspects of law with energy and enthusiasm. That we could compete head to head with prestigious law-school students from other countries and that our preparatory documents were appreciated at this competition led us to the conviction that we really could make it in the world. And as for the result, Team Waseda became the first Japanese team to win the only prize awarded on the platform together with the highest award. We are very proud, too, that at the party held every night, we were able to make Waseda’s presence felt in the world and make the announcement “The winner of this award is Waseda!” resound on the academic and international stage. This challenge was merely a start for us. We are now fired up to aim for an even higher level and go back again to Hong Kong ambitious for an even greater achievement.

<Members> Takashi Kubota, Professor at the School of Law, and Risa Morita
3rd-year students at the School of Law----------Mayuko Takeuchi, Sho Yanagisawa, Mariko Yamanaka, Sho Fujisawa, Sho Sanmi, Natuki Noda, Miki Yamamoto, Kaiken Shu, and Sho Nakazawa
Other School of Law students------------Masaaki Ibaraki and Masakatsu Nagashima