The Jagiellonian University team, consisting of August Adamowicz, Roxana Krzyżowska, Justyna Sikora, Maria Włoskowicz and Anna Zymuła, took third place in the finals of the Foreign Direct Investment International Arbitration Moot 2020, outperformed only by Brazilian and French teams, The JU students have been supervised and coached by Aleksandra Żanowska – a professional lawyer, graduate of the JU Faculty of Law and Administration.
The FDI Moot is one of the world’s largest international investment arbitration competitions. Based on a fictional legal case, the participants have to prepare a legal argument on behalf of the plaintiff and the defendant and then represent the parties at simulated arbitration sessions. The competition jury consists of world class experts in investment arbitration, who evaluate the participants’ skills in written argumentation and legal research, as well as their rhetorical abilities. The most challenging part of the competition is answering the arbitrators’ questions.
The oral finals of the competition, which took place online due to pandemic, featured seventy-seven student teams from all over the world. Altogether, the JU students competed in 9 matches, during which they bested teams from some of the world’s top universities, such as the National University of Singapore or the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. By taking third place, they have matched the previous best result in the history of the Jagiellonian University’s participation in the competition.
Competing in moot courts allows law students to acquire skills that complement formal academic education. They take the role of a team of professional lawyers who work on one specific case for half a year, learning not only to apply the law to factual situations, but also to present a legal argument in favour of a given party. The participants acquire the skill of preparing clear and convincing written pleadings. Preparing for the oral part of the competition, they have the opportunity to develop their own rhetorical style, at the same time learning the techniques of persuasion and presentation, which will certainly prove very useful during their future legal practice.
“One of the keys to succeed in the competition is effective teamwork, which is also important in practice. The experience of the former members of our team, as well as my own, shows that acquiring such skills during studies improves the law graduates position at the job market”, adds Aleksandra Żarnowska, the JU team supervisor.
