Category: And Now for Something Completely Different

“Africa in the Moot” and the Spirit of the Vis Moot

At the Willem C. Vis Moot, “the” moot competition in international commercial arbitration, the Michael L. Sher Award for the Spirit of the Willem C. Vis Moot is “awarded to a team or an individual student for its dedication and commitment to the Spirit of the Vis Moot.” This year, the award went to the University Eduardo Mondlane’s team from Maputo, Mozambique. Read More

The Month in Retrospect: What Else Happened in April 2021

Some Back and Forth on Brexit and Lugano

On 8 April 2021, I covered the first anniversay of the UK’s application to join the Lugano Convention, and took a fairly pessimistic view as to the prospects of the UK becoming a member state. So I was quite surprised to see a headline in the Financial Times on 12 April 2021 that claimed: “UK set to secure Brussels’ backing for joining legal pact“. The FT’s sources apparently got it wrong, however, and a couple of hours later the FT had to retract its report: “Brussels opposes UK bid to join legal pact, splitting EU states – European Commission says Britain should not be allowed to rejoin Lugano convention.” Other sources such as  Sueddeutsche Zeitung confirm that there had been no change in the EU Commission’s policy – there is no prospect of the UK joining Lugano any time soon. Read More