On May 16th, 2018, Fudan University team achieved top 10 in the Asia-Pacific round of the 10th Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition, and was ranked as one of the 50 qualifying teams for the pre-final round for the extraordinary U.N.-backed moot court. Competing with more than 170 participating teams from various countries and regions around the world, Fudan mooters have demonstrated their academic enthusiasm and intellectual excellence on a global scale.

(Official Logo of the Competition by the Steering Committee)

Nelson Mandela Human Rights Moot Court Competition is best known as the most renowned international moot court in human rights law, it is crowned as the“Olympic Games for Human Rights”. The Competition is currenly held each summer at Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The year of 2018 marks the centenary of the birth of Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi’s 70th death anniversary, and the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is thus highly expected that this year’s World Moot bears strong commemorative significance.

With the great support of Fudan Law School and Fudan University Center for Human Rights Studies (National Human Rights Education and Training Base), the team was composed of coach Dr. Tu Yunxin from Fudan Law School, 2015 undergraduates Ms. Yang Yuhan and Ms. Chu Yimo, 2016 postgraduates Ms. Du Yiwei and Ms. Luo Hengzhe. The team is deeply indebted to Prof. Lu Zhian, Vice dean Chen Li, Prof. Tang Xianxing, and Dr. Chen Li for their long-time tutorial guidance. After qualifying in the Asia-Pacific round, Fudan team will proceed to the pre-final round and compete for the world championship at the Palais des Nations in Geneva from July 15th to 20th, 2018.

(Official Poster of 2018 Competition by the Steering Committee)

Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition is a high-level professional global tournament for all undergraduate and postgraduate students worldwide. The official languages at present are English and French. The Competition is composed of the regional qualifying round and the global pre-final round. The regional qualifying round is held in 5 UN region groups including the African Group, the Asia-Pacific Group, the Eastern European Group, the Latin American and Caribbean Group, the Western European and Others Group. Since 2018, based on the amendments of the official rules of the competition, the best 10 teams from each UN region are qualified to participate in the pre-final round at the headquarter of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, where they move on competing on basis of their written memorials and oral pleadings.

On May 16th, 2018, the Steering Committee officially announced the results of the regional qualifying round and released the list of Pre-final Round Universities 2018. On the list, Fudan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Southwest University of Political Science & Law are the three Chinese teams that are qualified to the international round. While, India remains to be very strong, and the country has four qualifying teams. China and India are the two countries in the Asia-Pacific region with the most qualifying universities for this year.

(Official Logo of the Competition by the Steering Committee)

In the Asia-Pacific region round, Fudan students have overcome enormous difficulties with their solid legal knowledge, and have demonstrated first-class English language skills and outstanding team spirit. They have diligently excelled themselves during the competition out of many Asian-Pacific top teams. This July will witness qualifying teams from many prestigious institutions like Yale University, University of Oxford, University of New South Wales, University of São Paulo, etc. Fudan law school has constantly been committed to the education and training programs for innovative and outstanding legal talents. In recent years, Fudan has been recognized both domestically and internationally in major moot court competitions. Steping into the new era, we have one thousand reasons to believe that both Fudan Law school and the National Human Rights Education and Training Base of Fudan University will continue to make new contributions to the cultivation of China's first-rate legal talents along with the sister universities and research centers across the country.