Viennese Internationalism

Readers of my skeptical blog posts on internationalism (here and here) might be surprised and amused that I spent the past week in the heart of Old Europe at a classically internationalist confab: the Willem C. Vis International Arbitration Moot Competition. The Vis Moot draws students and lawyers from 47 different countries to Vienna to participate in arbitration “moots” involving problems applying the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). But despite my anti-internationalist proclivities, I had a great time in Vienna that was only partly related to the rather embarrassing amounts of bier and bratwurst I consumed.

Indeed, the Vis Moot reminds me the ways in which internationalism can and should matter. My students can and do benefit from making arguments against and before foreign lawyers because they learn how to communicate effectively across legal/cultural boundaries. The Vis Moot simulates a dispute between companies in two foreign countries who agree to have their dispute resolved under the CISG (an international treaty) and before a private arbitration tribunal. My students must draft briefs drawing on these international sources aimed toward a panel of arbitrators with diverse national and professional backgrounds. Even if they never practice before non-Americans again, this type of advocacy training is, in my humble opinion, enormously valuable because it challenges U.S. law students to think outside the box of the Federal Reporter and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and develop more flexible and adaptable advocacy skills.

But even beyond the actual competition, the Vis Moot is famous for its intense nightly socializing to all hours of the morning. The opportunity to meet with lawyers and law students from five continents is quite an experience, but the opportunity to down tequila shots with German and Australian lawyers at three in the morning is quite another (this is of course a purely hypothetical example which I did not necessarily partake in). This social experience reminds me of how much lawyers from widely different backgrounds still share in common and how it is possible to build personal and professional relationships across these national and cultural borders. And these kinds of relationships (even the drinking) are fundamental to the development of an international bar of lawyers practicing in the field of private international law, that is to say, private business transactions taking place across international borders. The Vis Moot is, in a sense, training the next generation of this international bar expanding the roster of lawyers beyond Western Europe and the U.S to include Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

This sort of “private internationalism” is probably inevitable but it is also, in my view, highly welcome. Internationalism, in its most attractive sense, is about the interaction of private individuals and groups across borders rather than governments. The goals and aspirations of private individuals should drive greater international cooperation rather than the other way around. The role of governments and international organizations is to facilitate these kinds of private interactions. The creation of an international bar of private lawyers specializing in private international transactions is just one part of this process of international private interactions, but it is a fascinating and important one.