The last weekend of March this year was scheduled for a traditional Belgrade Open Pre-Moot, the pre-moot competition organized on the occasion of the biggest world moot competition in International Commercial Arbitration and International Sale of Goods, Willem C. Vis, that will be held for the 19th time this year in Vienna. The Faculty of Law University of Belgrade has been organizing this pre-moot ever since 2008 in cooperation with GIZ Open Regional Fund for South East Europe, and this year we marked a small but significant milestone – the fifth anniversary of the Belgrade Open Pre-Moot. In the past few years, Belgrade Pre-Moot has grown to be the biggest pre-moot for Willem C. Vis in Europe with over 400 participants – arbitrators, coaches and students from 37 Universities and 26 different states from around the world, including Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America (see Schedule of hearingsand List of arbitrators). As in the past, the Pre-moot was preceded by the Belgrade Arbitration Conference. For more information on the inception of the Belgrade Open pre-moot and how its participants perceive it see >>

Apart from the great number of participants, one of the main features of the Belgrade Open Pre-Moot is outstanding quality of preparatory hearings since participants at the Belgrade Open Pre-Moot are regularly ranked among the top ten in Vienna. On the other hand, the fact that there are so many universities interested in this pre-moot is another evidence of quality of the competition itself. Namely, due to limited capacity, more than ten universities that wanted to come to Belgrade could not have been included in the final list of participants since the spots were filled on “first-come-first-served” basis.

The pre-moot was officially opened in a ceremony held at the amphitheater Radomir Lukić, followed by a cocktail for all the participants in Bonafides lounge (El Derecho) sponsored by the law offices that supported the event.

In period of two days, on 24 and 25 March 2012, more than 100 arbitration hearings took place. Having in mind that this supersedes the venue capacities of the Faculty of Law, several hearings were held in the premises of Karanovic-Nikolic Law Office and AmCham Belgrade, co-organizers of this event.

The teams that took part in this year’s preparatory tournament in Belgrade had a chance not only to compete and test their advocacy skills against their colleagues from around the world but to enjoy a full social calendar designed specifically for this occasion. The “Under the Bridge Party” that was a special event organized by Moravčević Vojnović Zdravković in cooperation with Schönherr law firm, occupied the premises of a recently redecorated alternative theater KPGT, right under the new Bridge on Ada – connecting one of the best views in Belgrade with a truly international atmosphere.

The V Belgrade Open Pre-Moot was officially closed on 25 March 2012 at a formal cocktail held in the Belgrade City Hall, put together by the Tourist Organization of Belgrade. Greeting the pre-moot participants, the director of the Tourist Organization of Belgrade, Mr. Dejan Veselinov has presented some highlights of Belgrade’s tourist riches and offers, and welcomed the guests to our capital expressing his warmest wishes for many to come back and enjoy Belgrade in the upcoming years. Ms Milena Djordjević, a lecturer at the Faculty of Law University of Belgrade, as the General Secretary of the Organizing Committee of the Belgrade Open Pre-Moot, has thanked the Tourist Organization of Belgrade for their generous help in organizing an event of this importance as well stressed our hopes for the cooperation between the institutions to continue in the years to come, bringing more guests from abroad to discover all the great flavors that Belgrade has to offer.

After the cocktail at the Belgrade City Hall, all students and participants of the V Belgrade Open Pre-Moot had a chance to enjoy a special atmosphere of Pavle Korčagin restaurant – surrounded by numerous artifacts from the period of the communist Yugoslavia – and sum up their impressions of Belgrade and the pre-moot.

The organization as successful as this one, could not have been achieved without the help of numerous institutions and law offices that supported the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law: GIZ Regional Open Fund for SEE, Foreign Trade Court of Arbitration attached to the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Tourist Organization of Belgrade, law offices Karanović-Nikolić, Moravčević Vojnović Zdravković in cooperation with Schönherr, CMS Reich Rohrwig Hainz and AmCham Serbia. The members of the organizing committee included: Professor Dr. Mirko Vasiljević, Professor Dr. Gašo Knežević, Professor Dr. Vladimir Pavić, Lecturer Ms Milena Djordjević LL.M, Lecturer Marko Jovanović LL.M and Teaching Assistant Uroš Živković, while the numerous student volunteers have contributed immensely to the direct organization of the whole event.

Photo Galleries from the V Belgrade Open Pre-Moot: 1>>  2>>  3>>

Video Gallery from the V Belgrade Open Pre-Moot >>