Trial by Fire: With all the drama of International Advocacy and Mooting, who needs daytime TV...

Published (for portfolio purposes only) from the original











Story by: Wenee Yap
February 13, 2008

Drive. Camaraderie. A killer will to win. A choking fear of defeat. Really, what more could you want from a summer break?

Welcome to International Advocacy and Mooting (IAM). Offered for the first time over summer 2007-08, it is essentially a seven week crash course for legal mooting newbies, designed to turn eager summer school law students into bleary eyed, sleep deprived teams of crack international law advocates hungry for victory. All in the two months spanning Christmas, New Year's Eve and most of January.

"Mooting is like having a baby," observed IAM subject coordinator and official coach to the UTS Jessup team, Michelle Sanson. "If you knew what you were in for, you'd never have done this. But once you do, you'd never take back the experience." This wisdom, delivered on day one of our IAM class, was evidently Sanson's version of a pep talk. Clearly it was most effective - by the next class, four people had dropped the subject from fright.

The Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot was the competition of choice amongst this summer's cohort. Focusing on international humanitarian and human rights law, the Jessup Moot is the world's largest competition attracting teams from over 500 law schools from 80 countries. Last year's Jessup Moot title was famously claimed by the University of Sydney; finalist team members are known to have moved in together in order to ensure daily and rigorous preparation for the competition.

By contrast, the four teams of our IAM class, most of whom were students new to mooting, had three weeks to research, draft and finalise ten thousand words worth of legal submissions covering four major points - violation of sovereignty, torture, denial of due process and extradition for war crimes concerning unlawful extraordinary rendition and torture - and a further four weeks to move from jittery, nervous, swaying public speakers to self-assured mooting professionals. A tall order? Indeed. It was best not to dwell on the difficulty of the task at hand; rather, to consider the advice of the once Terminator now Governator Arnold Schwarzzenger in one of his earlier films - 'I don't have time to bleed.'

With this in mind, our team of four - Naomi, Manuel, Sean and I - leapt into action. Naomi was an Israeli-raised Criminology undergraduate with a never-say-die will to win. Her firebrand passion would burn a hole in the ozone if the American SUV had not already done the job; she read two hundred UN Human Rights Commission and EU cases for her oral moot submissions alone. Sean came from one of the state's top selective schools; an Arts (Writing)/Law student, he arrived to class fresh from an intense army reserve boot camp. Manuel was a UWS Arts (Honors)/Law fourth year. And then there was me - no international law experience, no mooting experience, yet filled with a blind bravado that would see me through two colds, countless sleepless nights of moot preparation, and a total alienation of all friends and family due to a refusal to speak in a language other than that of international law for two months. We worked weeks and weekends. We missed Christmas and New Year's Eve. We worked January weeks, missed more weekends.

Was one summer school subject worth such a cost? Most definitely - and let me name the ways. Firstly, I submit that it was a subject that forced us, as law students, to look 'under the skin' of political action and legal argument - to learn how to challenge government action, unjust laws and defend human rights armed with the skillful use of legal knowledge; further, the sheer intensity of the experience forged friendships built on trust, respect and teamwork; further and in the alternative, the high stress factor justified a hefty load of post-moot sleeping, partying and drinking. I rest my case.