The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot is one of the most prestigious international moot court competitions for law students in the world. Since 1994, this competition has been held annually in Vienna and/or Hong Kong, attracting more than 300 law schools from all around the world and spurring the creation of more than twenty pre-moots each year.

 

This year, four Strathmore Law Students, students qualified to represent Africa, and they were: Fred Mtula, Yvonne Muthembwa, Evans Musau and Wangechi Githaiga. 

 

Travelling to Hong Kong was the best experience of our lives, and as cliché as it may sound, it was a very eye-opening trip. Personally, I didn’t even know I lacked global perspective until we attended the competition! 

 

During the competition, we excelled in our ranking, although we did not reach the finals, and considering we were one of the youngest teams and only African team, we did quite well.

 

We were privileged to interact with diverse races from around the world, some expressed keen interest in Kenya, and we mingled with students and faculty members from top global institutions like New York University, Harvard Law School, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, among others. 

 

It not only gave us a chance to represent the Strathmore Law School (our business cards proudly bore the SU logo) and Kenya (being the first time a Kenyan team participated), but also to represent Africa. It was pleasantly surprising for most of our arbitrators that Africans could speak well articulated English. On a lighter note, it was interesting to hear comments such as “Kenya is a very beautiful country, especially in South Africa.”  

 

We sincerely thank Strathmore Law School and Strathmore University for all the help and assistance it offered us, and for this, we are deeply grateful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Written by Wangechi Githaiga, SLS