HSE Students Outperform Future Lawyers from Cambridge University
The Russian team has won a prestigious international law competition.
University of Vienna hosted Willem C.Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot for the 25th time involving 362 student teams from the world’s best universities. This year’s winners are four-year students of Russia’s Higher School of Economics who outperformed Cambridge University students in the finals. The HSE team represented the defendant who refused to pay for the goods on account of the seller’s production ethics violation. In the previous rounds, the HSE team bested their peers from Columbia University, Temple University, Lomonosov Moscow State University etc as it showed profound knowledge of private international law and international commercial law as well as English language proficiency in debates.
The contest bears the name of Willem C.Vis, a renowned Dutch expert in international commercial law. It is the most prestigious law student competition. At the first stage, participants write a memo in English for the plaintiff and the defendant’s reply (the latter is drawn by the opponent university). The second stage simulates a court hearing.
Higher School of Economics is a modern Russian university offering quality education in different fields including law. HSE tuition fees are much lower than European universities’. For example, tuition fees for BSc programme in law start from 390,0000 rubles (£4,845) in Moscow, 280,000 rubles (£3,479) in St Petersburg and 135,000 rubles (£1,677) in Perm whereas a similar programme at Cambridge costs £20,157 a year (about 1,623,000 rubles).
