FD-UNAM
Last November, a representative team from the Faculty of Law, of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, participated in the 2022 edition of the “Foreign Direct Investment Moot” (FDI Moot), the most important competition on international investment arbitration in the world. Our team consisted of five students and two coaches, who traveled to King’s College in London, England. We got ready during eight months, honing our skills and obtaining the necessary knowledge about the subject, which requires high specialization. With the support of our sponsors, our Faculty, and our coaches, we achieved to put our university and our country on a high note.
The competition was divided into two stages: first, a written stage, in which the whole team wrote two memorials, and an oral stage in which two students represented the whole team against different universities. Thanks to the effort, we were ranked 27th out of the 140 participating universities worldwide. This position includes the scores of the oral rounds, as well as the written memorials. Within the oral stage, our speakers placed 41st and 62nd out of a total of 204 students.
This international opportunity brought us closer to a new, little-known facet of law, and allowed us to rediscover our skills and potential as future lawyers. Competing against foreign universities, and even more so when our team was one of the four Latin American countries present and the only Mexican , broadened our perspective and allowed us to confirm that UNAM, and specifically the Faculty of Law, has the necessary level to compete against universities of different nationalities and achieve favorable results.
The team is very proud of all that has been accomplished, as this is the first time that a Mexican university has participated in this competition. Especially in investment arbitration, an area in which Mexico, in recent years, has been increasingly involved. The university’s participation sets an important precedent for the upcoming years, so that more students can challenge themselves, prepare themselves and fill us with pride.
The photo shows the whole team, on both extremes, the coaches Jorge Velázquez and Mariana Gomez-Vallín, and from left to right the students Ricardo Salazar, Elizabeth Moctezuma, Sonia Alcaraz, Katia Hernandez and Cruz Chaparro.
