Introduction of the 2015/2016 ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO Law

ELSA Moot Court Competition is a simulated hearing of the WTO dispute settlement system held by the European Law Students’ Association annually. Participants from all over the world are separated into several regional rounds, and the best 20 teams out of these regional rounds will qualify for the Final Oral Round which takes place at the WTO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. This year, the Asia-Pacific regional round was held in Singapore, Singapore on March 11th. The Final Oral Round was held from June 7th to June 12th, 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The fictitious case of this year involves the following issues:

(1) Under SCM Art. 3.1(a), the issue is whether the IFF Grant is specific, a prohibited subsidy and contigent upon export performance.

(2) Under SCM Art.5(c), the issues are if the Eribank Loan is a financial contribution by a public body and entrusted by the government and confers benefits, if the Fusilliscopes and solar panels are not in the same market and if it has individually or caused significant lost sales of SolarTech’s solar panels and thus caused serious prejudice to the interests of the Complainant.

(3) Under SCM Art.5(c), another issue is whether the FIT Purchase causes displacement or impediment of Borduria’s imports of like products into Eriador’s market under SCM Art.6.3(a), and thereby serious prejudice to Borduria’s interests under SCM Arts.5(c).

In this year’s Asia-Pacific regional round, we won the 1st place and was awarded the Best Written Submission for Complainant; and in the Final Oral Round, we won the 3rd place among all the participating teams.