head img  
NTU Taiwan University img
  Spotlight

:::

NTU Law School Debate Team Won Second Place in WTO Global Moot Court Competition

The NTU College of Law debate team participated in the WTO Global Moot Court Competition held in Geneva on May 3rd. After a fierce and grueling process, the NTU team emerged triumphant and won the second place. This is a hard-earned achievement, and by far the best for Taiwan in the three years that Taiwan has participated in this event. Taiwan's "all around participation" in this global event is considered to be beneficial toward Taiwan's overall diplomatic efforts. NTU's winning team had their photos taken with other national team members.

All participants took a group picture.
All participants of WTO Global Moot Court Competition took a group picture.

The participating teams are all winners of the regional competitions. They came from Europe, North America, South America, Australia and Asia. With a total of 16 teams, the qualifications of the team members were quite high. The NTU team and the Hong Kong University team obtained the right to participate in the global competition by virtue of their winning the Asian competition in January. The teams were judged on four criteria: legal analyses, reasoning, style, and timing. A grand panel composed of seven judges ruled that the NTU team was the second best, losing to the University of Andes Team from Colombia by a slight margin. Belgium was the second runner up , and Germany took the fourth place. None of the teams from the English speaking countries made the top four.

The NTU debate team is composed of four graduate students from the Institute of Interdisciplinary Legal Studies. They are, Miss Tsai-Ping Tang, Mr. Ding Jin, Mr. Wei-Jen Chen, and Miss Juan-Yu Chen. The two "student coaches", Mr. Yueh-Ping Yang and Mr. Chun-Ming Chen are also graduate students from the same institute. The two official coaches for the team were also previous NTU team members who won the first place in Asian moot court competition and the fifth place in global moot court competition two years ago.

Over the past several months, both the coaching staff and the team members devoted themselves to the preparation of the competition day and night, so their success is by no means accidental. Law Professor Chang-Fa Lo, who also serves as Dean for NTU's Asian Center for WTO & International Health Law and Policy (commonly known as the WTO Center), specifically commissioned Professor Tsai-Yu Lin (who is a external consultant for the Center) of Soochow University's Institute of International Business as the accompanying teacher for the team. Mr. Ding Jin, one of the team members, distinguished himself by winning the best orator award in the preliminary rounds and the final oral round. It is truly amazing that a student from Taiwan could become the best orator in the world!! Despite the jet lag, insufficient sleep, and being under the weather, the coaches and the team members practiced their drills till midnight before the competition on a daily basis without fail. With their strong will power, their perseverance, the NTU debate team and the coaching staff finally passed the test with flying colors. It is a remarkable achievement that all can be proud of.

In addition, Professor Chang-fa Lo had previously recommended another external consultant for the WTO Center, Professor Shin-yi Peng (the Institute of Law for Science and Technology, Tsing-hua University) to ELSA to serve as a case author. So as far as the topics for the global competitions are concerned, Taiwan has its share of input. Professor Peng was also one of the judges for the semi-finals and the finals of the global competition. Every year NTU's WTO Center holds the Asian moot court competition on WTO law (this year is the third year), and trains debate teams to participate in the competitions at the same time. All regional competitions are held in reputable universities within each particular region. For Asia, the traditional strong teams are; National Taiwan University, Hong Kong University, and teams from India. The official website for NTU's WTO Center is: http://www.law.ntu.edu.tw/center/wto/index.asp

  Copyright 2008 NTU Secretariat

Chinese version