The "International Criminal Court Moot Trial Competition" is a professional moot trial debate competition initiated by the International Criminal Court and organized in cooperation with legal organizations or universities around the world in six official languages of the Court (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish). Since three current judges of the International Criminal Court appear in court every year, it has become one of the highest-level moot trial competitions in the world.
Among them, the ICC Chinese Competition is sponsored by the Center for the Promotion of International Law, China Union of Young Scholars in International Criminal Law, the International Criminal Court and the Law School of Renmin University of China. The first prize team that has advanced to the top 12 will be qualified to go to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands to participate in the global finals, which makes it the only global moot trial competition that can use Chinese and compete outside Greater China. In 2021, a total of 72 famous universities from all over the country formed teams to participate in this competition, and the number of participating teams reached a record high.
Figure 1: Poster of ICC Chinese Competition 2021
The first and second rounds of the 2021 International Criminal Court Chinese moot trial Competition were held in the form of Tencent Conference from April 17, 2021 to April 18, 2021. In the competition, the Beijing Normal University team won the first prize in China, and successfully advanced to the finals together with the teams from 12 universities including Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Wuhan University and Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Figure 2: "Group Photo" after the Competition
This ICC Beijing Normal University team was formed in the autumn semester of 2020, and was coached by Mr. Li Bin from Law School. The team consists of Liu Muhan (2017 Law Excellence Experimental Class, Assistant Coach), Dong Xiaojin (2018 Law Excellence Experimental Class, Team Leader), Huang Shuyan (2018 Law Excellence Experimental Class), Wang Shuyi (2019 Hande Law Experimental Class), Li Jiaxun (2019 Law Excellence Experimental Class), Lin Mingjie(2019 Hande Law Experimental Class), and Zhang Hanyu (2019 Law Excellence Experimental Class).
Figure 3: "Group Photo" via video when Participating in the Conference
This International Criminal Court moot trial (Chinese Competition) sets competition topics around crimes against humanity, individual criminal responsibility, effective jurisdiction and defendant's rights. The team members trained the new team members from the beginning of the team formation. After the title of the competition was announced, the team further organized legal search and arranged the writing task of the written pleadings in an orderly manner. After nearly eight months of careful preparation, the team finally submitted the written pleadings on time on March 19th, 2021.
Figure 4: Physically Group Photo after Submission of Written Pleadings
The outstanding achievements of the Beijing Normal University team in this competition are closely related to the full support of the Law School and Hande College, the careful guidance of Teacher Li Bin and the hard work of the team members. During the pre-competition training stage, Teacher Liao Shiping provided valuable suggestions for the team. In the preparation stage, Gong Yu (2015 Law Excellence Experimental Class), Chen Liang (2015 Law Excellence Experimental Class), Tian Jiurun (2017 Hande Law Experimental Class), Guo Zihe (2017 Hande Law Experimental Class), Geng Zhi (2018 Hande Law Experimental Class) and other old ICC players also provided great support and help to the team. In the future, the Law School will continue to vigorously support Jessup, VisMoot, ICC and other international moot trial competitions. Students at all levels of the Law School are welcomed to sign up for such competitions to enrich their experience and enhance their learning ability!