The mooting committee at the National Law Institute University, Bhopal (NLIU) has started using video-conferencing to train its Vienna and Hong Kong teams for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (Vis). NLIU recently conducted video-conferences with Canadian and US universities, allowing the NLIU teams to interact, observe and learn from their foreign counterparts.

Speaking to Bar & Bench, the convener of the Moot Court Committee at NLIU, Bishen Jeswant, says that this is just one of the initiatives that NLIU wants to undertake, the final goal being to improve “....India's performance at International Moots through organized and systematic Pre-Moots”.

On February 10, 2012 NLIU had a Moot Round between their Vis Vienna team and Osgoode Hall Law School, Canada. On February 15, 2012 they had a Moot Round between their Vis Hong Kong team and Arizona State University, USA. NLIU also had intra-university training sessions between the Hong Kong and Vienna teams.

The time difference between India and Toronto (where Osgoode hall is located) is ten and a half hours; that between India and Arizona is twelve and a half hours. So the Video Conference Moots had to be scheduled at 7:30p.m and 9 p.m since the only other option would be to have it early in the morning. Jeswant notes that these sessions were a good learning experience for the teams as they not only benefited from the exposure, but also got to witness different styles of speaking. “It was almost as if they were arguing in the same room...”, he notes.

Both sides had “arbitrators” during these sessions, with each arbitrator providing feedback to the opposite team members. Osgoode and Arizona had their mooting coaches as arbitrators while NLIU had their faculty advisor and students who had previously taken part in Vis competitions.

As to why NLIU chose to focus on the Vis Moot alone, Jeswant (pictured left) explains that the Vis moot is, arguably, one of the most prestigious moots in the world. Furthermore, the lack of an Indian qualifying round meant that teams can start preparing from July 2011 itself, a crucial factor given the planning involved in holding such training sessions (Jeswant had started reaching out to teams in July 2011 itself).

Jeswant also notes that organising such sessions are not particularly difficult. All that is required is prior planning and some basic equipment to enable video conferencing. Even without this, teams can conduct such exercises over Skype according to Jeswant.

As the Moot Conveners Conference edges nearer, Jeswant hopes that such initiatives encourage other universities to innovate and develop ways and means to improve the mooting standards in the country.