The Faculty of Law of Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia (UiTMLaw) participated in the Jessup Intercontinental Friendly 2021 which was held online for the first time since its conception due to the pandemic. The Jessup Intercontinental Friendly 2021 was organized by a collective group of four European universities from Bulgarian, France, Latvia and Portugal.
The team made it to the finals of the Intercontinental Friendly and went up against Portugal’s top law school from the University of Lisbon, having beaten out the top-ranked team in the group stage from Sweden in the semi-finals. They emerged proudly as the first runner-up. Ameerah Batrisyia added a feather to her cap when she was named the 8th Best Oralist of the Jessup Intercontinental Friendly 2021.
The team from UiTMLaw, led by Wardah Yumna binti Yunus (a winner of the Jessup Best Oralist in the Malaysian National Rounds in 2019 and 2020), also consisted of Ameera Batrisyia binti Reza Andrian Malikwi Wan Nur Fatini binti Wan Abd Halim, Farah Nurizzaty Afifa binti Azhar and Muhammad Iqmal Hazim bin Khairuddin. The team was trained by moot coaches Prof. Dr Irwin Ooi Ui Joo and Dr Ummi Hani Masood.
Teams were given a fictional legal case or a moot problem on issues of international law and must plead their stance before the International Court of Justice. This year, the competition embraced the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the world’s landscape and based the competition to appear before the court concerning the J-Vid-18 Pandemic.
Several similar friendly rounds such as the Jessup Intercontinental Friendly 2021 are also held in the Asia Pacific region and the South Asia region. These friendly rounds are treated as training.
These friendly rounds are treated as training grounds, culminating in the anticipated Jessup Global Rounds as the final leg of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. Jessup is widely held as the most prestigious mooting competition in the world and as the largest gathering of international law students in history.
In line with the needs of the legal industry, UiTMLaw believes that participation in mooting competitions will enable its students to develop their soft skills of critical thinking, research, writing and advocacy. The UiTMLaw Mooting Team continues to be a powerful force nationally and continues to make Malaysia proud internationally.