Triumph for Exeter student in prestigious Law moot competition

Lynn Yu (2007, Jurisprudence) was part of the winning team at the prestigious White & Case United Kingdom Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition recently. The Oxford team beat 19 other teams from universities and Inns of Court across the country, triumphing over University College London in the Grand Final, and winning all six of their competition moots. They will go on to represent the UK in the international championship in Washington DC, alongside the second- and third-placed teams in the UK competition (University College London and the London School of Economics).

This is the second consecutive year that an Oxford team has, as UK Champions, won the Rebecca M M Wallace Trophy, and the third consecutive year that Oxford will represent the United Kingdom in Washington.

Jessup is the largest mooting competition in the world and involves an enormous amount of work for the students – their written work alone requires preparation of two 12,000-word memorials. In 2009, the 50th year of the contest, there are over 500 teams from almost 90 countries vying for the world title. This year’s hypothetical problem set before the International Court of Justice, ‘The Case Concerning Operation Provide Shelter’, raises a variety of topical issues of public international law, including the use of force by way of humanitarian intervention, state responsibility for the conduct of troops of occupying powers, the grant of asylum and the power and authority of the Court itself.