From July 26 to 27, the offline elimination rounds of the Foreign Direct Investment International Arbitration Moot Shenzhen 2025 (hereinafter referred to as “FDI Moot Shenzhen 2025”) was grandly held in Shenzhen. A total of 44 teams from Mainland China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and Macao Special Administrative Region, participated in the competition this year. CESL team advanced to the top 16 and won the Third Prize after intense competition. Team member JIANG Jipeng was awarded the individual honor of the “Best Oralist”.
Group photo at the award ceremony
(From left to right：ZHAO Huihui, JIANG Jipeng, YUAN Ziye, ZHANG Xinyu, LEI Zhiren)
The awarding ceremony of “Best Oralist” individual award
National Third Prize Award Certificate and “Best Oralist” Individual Award Certificate
The CESL FDI team this year comprised four double master’s degree students from the Class of 2024, including oralists JIANG Jipeng and LEI Zhiren, and researchers YUAN Ziye and ZHANG Xinyu. Their coaches were Professors Susan-Gale WINTERMUTH and Monty SILLEY. Former team members TAO Zhilin, ZHAO Huihui, ZHANG Ruohan, WU Yuzhuo, Li Xianglong, HAN Zhongyuan, LIU Ruihan, SHEN Xinyu, and YANG Xintong served as student coaches. In this year’s FDI Moot coaching framework, the student coaches built a comprehensive support network and assumed primary training responsibilities. Particularly noteworthy were contributions from student coaches WU Yuzhuo and LI Xianglong for their in-depth involvement in preliminary case analysis and memorandum structuring. Throughout the preparation phase, ZHAO Huihui, WU Yuzhuo, LI Xianglong, SHEN Xinyu and YANG Xintong deepened the team’s research and honed their oral advocacy by introducing practical cross-examination techniques and refining argument logic through multiple internal practice sessions. Their efforts provided the tactical backbone that carried the team into the in-person rounds. Professors WINTERMUTH and SILLEY, serving as faculty advisors, offered strategic guidance at critical moments. This peer-to-peer mentoring system has become the hallmark of the CESL team this year.
From July 19 to 20, the team passed four online preliminary rounds and advanced into the national TOP‑16, qualifying for the offline elimination rounds of the FDI Moot Shenzhen 2025.
On July 26th, the offline elimination round was launched. CESL team competed against the teams from Fudan University and Xi'an Jiaotong University in succession. JIANG Jipeng was in charge of the procedural issues. Facing the arbitrators' consecutive inquiries, he remained calm and confident, answering the arbitrators' questions briefly and forcefully. In the subsequent rebuttal stage, he seized the opponents' problems and launched a counterattack. The merits oralist LEI Zhirun, advanced our argumentation logic step by step. Despite the team's thorough preparation and excellent performance, CESL team still lost to the opponents. With his outstanding performance in the two matches, JIANG Jipeng was conferred the individual award of the "Best Oralist" of FDI Moot Shenzhen this year.
Round of 16 Post-match Group photo
The 9th to 12th place play-off Post-match Group photo
In the FDI Moot series events of this season, the CESL team tempered their professional expertise under intense schedules and exemplified the spirit of the rule of law through teamwork. Faced with high-stakes match-ups in the offline knockout rounds, the team tackled tribunal questioning with confidence grounded in solid legal foundations, showcasing the substantive academic capabilities of CESL students in multidimensional procedural and substantive arguments and defenses. Though the outcome was not without regret, every oral exchange and each legal memo drafted late into the night built a firm stepping-stone to the international arena. These experiences will serve as sparks to illuminate CESL students’ trailblazing path in the FDI Moot platform and broader legal frontiers.
Text: YUAN Ziye, CESL double master student from 2024 intake
Photos: Organizing Committee of the FDI Moot Shenzhen 2025
Chief Editor: CHEN Yingfang
