Team SMU has won the Singapore national round of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, and are on their way to represent the country in Washington, D.C.!

Besides the title of the 2017 National Champions, the moot team comprising SMU School of Law undergraduates Chow Zi En (4th year), Daniel Ho (4th year), Shriram Jayakumar (3rd year), Alexander Lee (3rd year) and Wong Yan Yee (4th year) also clinched the Best Memorial award at the competition which was held on 25 February 2017 at the Court of Appeal.

The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, now in its 58th year, is the largest and most prestigious public international law moot competition in the world, with participants from over 550 law schools in more than 87 countries.  This is the fourth time SMU has won in the national round in the past five years that we have participated, SMU had also reached the championship final of the International Round in 2013 and 2014.  The consistent good showing is certainly testament to the rigour of SMU School of Law’s International Moots Programme and the excellent quality of SMU’s mooters.

Zi En, the team captain, said of the national round result: "It was a close contest, but our years of hard work paid off.  Along the way we also received a lot of help from hundreds of our alumni."

This year’s hypothetical case revolved around the use of a shared water resource (aquifer) between two states.  Both states were experiencing a drought and one of them proceeded to extract water from the aquifer at a rate that caused damage to the other state's farms as well as a shared World Heritage Site.  The other issues that arose were whether a state could withhold the return of stolen cultural property and whether there should be compensation for the creation of a migrant outflow.

Singapore currently has one of the best track records at the International Rounds, having been World Champion four times and Runner-Up nine times.  We wish the SMU team all the best as they train hard in the coming weeks to bring honour to the country at the Jessup International Round, scheduled to take place from 9 to 15 April in Washington, D.C.

[Featured Photo: The team, comprising (L-R) Chow Zi En, Wong Yan Yee, Shriram Jayakumar, Alexander Lee and Daniel Ho, with Assistant Coach Nicholas Liu (SMU alumni, JD'2015)]