Willem Cornelis Vis

The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot or Vis Moot is an international moot court competition. Since 1994, it has been held annually in Vienna, Austria attracting more than 300 law schools from all around the world and spurring the creation of more than twenty pre-moots each year before the actual rounds are held in Vienna. It is the largest moot in the world for its field and is considered a grand slam or major moot. A sister moot, known as the Willem C. Vis (East) Moot, is held in Hong Kong just before the rounds in Vienna. It was established in 2003 and attracts around 150 teams every year, making it the second largest commercial arbitration moot and also a grand slam moot. It uses the same moot problem as the Vis Moot.

The object of the Vis Moot is to foster study in the area of international commercial arbitration and encourage the resolution of business disputes by arbitration. The problem for the moot is always based on an international sales transaction subjected to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, 1980 (also referred to as the United Nations or the Vienna Sales Convention, or CISG) and also involves procedural issues of arbitration. The moot consists of submitting written memoranda prior to the moot on designated dates for both sides of the dispute (Claimant and Respondent in legal terminology).

The moot is named after Willem Cornelis Vis (1924–1993), a world-recognized expert in international commercial transactions and dispute settlement procedures. Vis was born in Utrecht in the Netherlands and graduated from Leiden University and Nijmegen University in the Netherlands. He also read law, economics and philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Vis began to work for European co-operation in 1957 as a member of the Council of Europe Secretariat, in its human rights and legal affairs directorates, and later, in 1965, became Deputy Secretary-General of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) in Rome. In 1968 he moved to the United Nations Secretariat in New York, where he became Senior Legal Officer, then Chief of the International Trade Law Branch of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, and Secretary of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

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