参赛者将赛题带入现实：专访Jessup 2021年赛题作者

译者案：

欧洲国际法博客（Vöelkerrechtsblog）于2021年5月专访了Jessup 2021年赛题作者Peter Tzeng；经Vöelkerrechtsblog与Peter Tzeng联合授权，法律竞赛第一时间对此次访谈进行翻译，以飨读者。在此，感谢Vöelkerrechtsblog与Peter对我们的支持。

翻译：

宁行，看看，柯宇，三斤橘

Vöelkerrechtsblog的寄语和介绍：

The Jessup Moot Court is a unique opportunity in the academic career of every student to experience international encounter and exchange, which are prerequisites for better understanding different perspectives on international law and international relations. In this sense, Völkerrechtsblog hopes to contribute to this worldwide encounter and exchange - both within the specific framework of our Symposium on the 2021 Jessup Moot Court, and beyond.

Jessup是一个让每位学生在学术生涯中体验国际交流的独特机会，这使得他们得以更好理解国际法和国际关系。因此，不论是否在2021年Jessup研讨会框架下，Völkerrechtsblog均希望能够对这一全球性的交流活动有所贡献。

We encourage everyone - from students, to PhD candidates, to established scholars - to both comment on our blog and/or to submit articles on international law topics via [e-mail].

我们鼓励任何人（不论是学生、博士生还是学者）对我们的博客进行评论，或向我们提交以国际法为主题的文章。（邮箱：[e-mail]）

‘The students bring it to life’

An Interview With the Author of The 2021 Jessup Problem

After authoring his first Jessup Problem in 2018, Peter Tzeng returned this year with the ‘Case Concerning the J-VID-18 Pandemic’. In an unusual competition year, the case – somewhat unsurprisingly – addressed legal issues relating to a pandemic, as well as questions of diplomatic asylum and the shoot-down of a civil aircraft.

在撰写2018年Jessup赛题之后，Peter Tzeng今年再次撰写赛题“J-VID-18疫情案”。在这独特的一年里，本案与疫情、外交庇护与击落民航飞机等相关法律问题息息相关。

Peter practices as a lawyer from Washington, D.C. and regularly works on cases before the International Court of Justice and other international courts and tribunals. He graciously agreed to have a virtual chat in early May of this year with our editor Jens Kaiser to discuss the process of drafting the 2021 Jessup Problem, how he came up with all those fancy proverbial names and how the Jessup compares to the ‘real’ International Court of Justice.

Peter是美国华盛顿特区的一名律师，日常处理国际法院等国际法庭的案件。Peter同意于今年五月初与Vöelkerrechtsblog编辑Jens Kaiser讨论2021年Jessup赛题、他如何想出如此多花哨的名字以及Jessup与真正的国际法院有何异同。

Peter, thank you so much for making time in your schedule for us. You have now written two Jessup Problems. Would you say that the pandemic influenced the drafting process compared to a non-pandemic year?

Peter，感谢你在百忙之中抽出时间接受我们的采访。你目前已经撰写了两次Jessup赛题，在疫情年撰写赛题和在非疫情年撰写赛题有何不同？

Thank you for having me, Jens. It’s an absolute pleasure to connect again after meeting at the German National Rounds in Kiel, now more than three years ago, believe it or not.

Jens，感谢你邀请我至此。距离我们上次在德国国内赛（基尔）见面已经过了三年，非常高兴能够和你重逢。

The pandemic certainly influenced the content of the Problem this year, but the drafting process was very much the same. I submitted a proposal in early February, the International Law Students Association (“ILSA”) selected it in April, and from then until the Problem’s release in September, I was responsible for producing multiple drafts of the Problem. Each one of these drafts was reviewed, critiqued, discussed and debated by a ten-member editorial committee. All of this was done over e-mail and video conference this year, but that was also the case in 2018. So, there was really no difference in the drafting process.

疫情的确影响了今年赛题的实体内容，但赛题起草的流程却没有什么变化。我在二月初提交了赛题提案，ILSA（注：Jessup组织方）四月选定了我的提案；此后直到九月赛题发布，我便负责起草赛题的多个版本——每个版本均由十人组成的编委会审阅、批判、讨论并辩驳。上述所有步骤今年均通过电子邮件与网络会议进行，但2018年的时候也是一样。因此，赛题起草的流程并没有什么变化。

The Jessup Problem usually draws on real life, in some years more heavily than in others. Could you elaborate a bit on your inspirations this year?

Jessup赛题通常取材于现实，某些年份的赛题甚至比现实更加沉重。你能谈谈今年赛题的灵感吗？

Sure. There were three main substantive issues in the Problem. One was a pandemic, or rather, entry restrictions in response to a pandemic. The second one was diplomatic asylum, although some might use a different term to characterize what actually happened there. And the third issue was the shoot-down of a civil aircraft.

当然，今年赛题共有三个实体问题。第一个问题是疫情，或者说是针对疫情的入境管制。第二个问题是外交庇护，当然也有人会用不同的术语描述这一案情。第三个问题是击落民用飞机。

For the pandemic issue, obviously, COVID-19 was the inspiration. At the time I submitted my proposal, in early February 2020, COVID-19 was not yet a pandemic and not yet on everyone’s minds, at least not in the US. But I happened to be in Singapore for a hearing, and the country had just introduced entry restrictions with respect to China, which I thought raised fascinating questions of international health law.

就疫情而言，COVID-19当然是其灵感。当我在2020年2月初提交提案，COVID-19还不是一个全球性的疫情，也并不被每个人放在心上——至少在美国如此。那时我偶然赴新加坡出席一次庭审，新加坡当时对中国进行了入境管制，我认为这会引发国际卫生法下的诸多国际法问题。

As for diplomatic asylum, the incident that sparked my interest in this issue occurred in late 2019 when a group of former Bolivian government officials sought refuge in the Mexican embassy in La Paz. Mexico had reportedly intended to bring the matter to the International Court of Justice, though such a case was never registered.

就外交庇护而言，2019年的一次实践引发了我对该问题的兴趣。当年，一些玻利维亚前政府官员在墨西哥驻拉巴斯大使馆寻求庇护。据报道，墨西哥曾打算将该事件移交国际法院，尽管其最后并未发生。

And regarding the aircraft shoot-down, I’ve long been interested in questions of international aviation law, and, regrettably, there is quite a bit of State practice on aircraft shoot-downs. But the immediate incident that inspired this issue in the Problem was the tragic shoot-down of Flight PS752 in Iran in January 2020.

就击落民航飞机而言，我长期以来一直对国际航空法颇有兴趣，击落民航飞机领域（令人遗憾地）亦有较多国家实践。就直接激发我灵感的事件则是2020年PS752号航班在伊朗的不幸坠落。

Finally, parts of the plot were inspired by the movie Mile 22. There’s this one scene where Iko Uwais, playing a triple agent, speeds through traffic and arrives at the front gates of a US embassy in a Southeast Asian country seeking asylum. I had that scene in mind when describing how Ms. Vormund flees to the Ranovstayan consulate in Aprepluya.

最后，赛题的部分情节受到了电影《22英里》的启发。在电影的一幕场景中，饰演三重特工的伊可·乌威斯（Iko Uwais）超速穿越车流，来到一个东南亚国家的美国大使馆的前门寻求庇护。当我描述Vormund女士如何逃到Ranovstayan在Aprepluya的领事馆时，我脑海中就有了这个场景。

Had you planned on doing another Problem anyway? Or was the pandemic something that particularly interested you and made you submit another proposal?

你是否计划无论如何都会写一份赛题？或者说，是否是疫情引发了你的兴趣而导致你提交了今年赛题？

I definitely did not plan to submit a proposal this year. But after hearing about Singapore’s entry restrictions and reading more about the subject out of curiosity, I immediately felt that it would be a fascinating international legal issue to debate – there are the legally binding International Health Regulations that have never been interpreted by a formal judicial body, and yet there is plenty of State practice, as well as relevant WTO jurisprudence on the SPS Agreement. At that time, ILSA happened to be looking for proposals for the Jessup Problem, so I thought ‘oh, why not just make this a Jessup proposal?’

我当年本不打算提交任何赛题提案。但在听闻新加坡的入境管制并基于好奇心而阅读了更多该主题的材料后，我立刻察觉到一个非常有趣的法律问题可供辩论——没有任何国际司法机构就《国际卫生条例》（IHR）这一具有法律约束力的文本进行过解释，但在该领域有大量的国际事件且WTO也对《实施卫生与动植物检疫措施协议》（SPS协定）（注：SPS协定与IHR的解释有关）有过判例。那时，ILSA正好在征集Jessup赛题提案，我便想：“为什么不干脆把这个问题当作Jessup赛题的提案呢？”

I have been told that you provide ILSA with a detailed legal analysis of your Problems, also during the drafting process, and that this is not necessarily done by every author. What is your motivation for doing that?

我听说你在起草赛题的过程中给ILSA提供了赛题的详细法律分析，而并非每个作者均会这样做。你这样做的动机是什么？

(laughs) I see you have your inside sources. Yes, I do it to facilitate productive exchanges with the editorial committee. As I mentioned earlier, from April to September, the author produces multiple drafts of the Problem, and the editorial committee reviews and critiques each one of those drafts. This year, in order to help the committee assess my drafts, I accompanied each one with a detailed analysis of the relevant legal issues. This way, the committee would know what issues I wanted to play up, what legal arguments the students could make and how the arguments were intended to be balanced. In my view, this really helped make our exchanges more fruitful.

（笑）看来你有内幕消息。是的，我这样做是为了促进与编委会的有效沟通。正如此前提及，作者需要在4月至9月间提交多份赛题草案，而编委会则会对每个版本进行审阅、批判。今年，为了协助编委会评估我的草案，我为每份赛题草案附加了有关问题的详细法律分析。这样，编委会便能明确我想要提出的问题、学生可以提出的论点以及这些论点何以平衡。在我看来，这样的做法的确使得我们的沟通更加成果。

The editorial process sounds quite productive, but also like there are a lot of people involved. Can discussions among this group sometimes be controversial?

看来赛题编写的效率很高，但似乎有很多人参与其中，在讨论过程中会出现争议吗？

Yes, we certainly have disagreements, and as the author you sometimes have to defend your position against criticism. But on the whole discussions with the editorial committee are very cordial. Everyone is very nice and this year we all got along very well.

是的，我们当然有分歧，而作为作者，你有时不得不捍卫自己的立场，反对批评。但总的来说，与编委会的讨论是非常热烈友好的。每个人都很好，今年我们相处得很好。

Is there something that you wanted to include in the Problem that did not make it through the committee?

有什么内容是你想包含进赛题中，但是编委会没有通过的吗？

Yes, I actually wanted to have Ms. Vormund be a member of a disadvantaged ethnic minority group in Aprepluya, which was an idea that originally came from an editorial committee member. To me, this would have better justified why she took refuge in a consulate rather than just reporting the information she had to the Aprepluyan authorities. I also thought it would strengthen Ranovstayo’s arguments for granting her asylum, such that it would better balance out that issue. But there were several members of the committee that were very strongly against it and at the end of the day you have to pick your battles, so this is one I ultimately decided to let up on.

是的，我实际上想让Vormund女士成为Aprepluya中处境不利的少数民族成员。这个想法最初由编委会成员提出。在我看来，这可以更好地说明为什么她向领事馆寻求避难，而不是直接向Aprepluya当局报告她所掌握的信息。我还认为这能加Ranovstayo关于给予她庇护的论点，从而更好地平衡这一问题。但委员会中有几个成员非常强烈地反对这一点，而到最后你必须作出选择，所以我最终决定放弃这一点。

What was the reasoning behind not including that?

不把上述内容写进赛题的原因是什么呢？

Some editors were of the view that Jessup problems always have ethnic minorities, and wanted to move away from that paradigm. Others felt that Ranovstayo already had a very strong argument on diplomatic asylum. I personally thought that the issue ended up slightly favourable to Aprepluya, which is part of the reason of why I wanted to introduce the ethnic minority element, but other people felt differently, even after I provided my legal analysis.

一些编辑觉得Jessup赛题里总是出现少数民族，他们就想摆脱这种范式。还有人认为Ranovstayo就外交庇护问题已有非常有力的论据。就我的观点而言，这个问题实际上对Aprepluya更加有利，而这也是我想引入少数民族因素的原因之一。但是，即便在我提供法律分析后，其他人也对此持不同观点。

How different is the final Problem from the first draft?

最终赛题与初稿有多大的差别呢？

This year, on the whole, it was not that different. The three main substantive issues were pretty much the same as I had originally proposed. ILSA encouraged me to add a jurisdictional issue, which I ended up developing in the drafting process. The actual wording of the Problem, on the other hand, underwent many changes. Certain senior members of the editorial committee are particularly gifted in wordsmithing Jessup problems.

总体而言，今年并没有太大的不同。三个主要的实体问题与我最初提出的基本相同。ILSA鼓励我增加一个管辖权问题，最后我在起草过程中加入了这个问题。另一方面，赛题的实际措词经历了许多变化。某些编委会的资深成员在赛题的语言措辞方面非常有天赋。

You already addressed the issue of balancing arguments. How do you generally go about ensuring that there is a balance between both sides? Do you have some examples of how you adjusted this year’s case to make it ‘fair’?

你谈到了平衡论据的问题。你通常如何确保案件双方之间保持平衡？能否举一些例子来说明是如何调整今年的案件以使其“平衡”？

I think there are two steps. First, you need to find a live legal issue that hasn’t been resolved. If the ICJ has already decided an issue, it is very hard for the other side to argue against that. This year we had the entry restrictions issue, which was a clearly a live one given that there has not been any formal judicial interpretation of the International Health Regulations. On diplomatic asylum, you have one ICJ Judgment from 1950, but it was not very clear on some aspects of the issue. And regarding the shoot-down of a civil aircraft, that’s generally unlawful, but the legal relevance of mistake and self-defence are less clear.

我认为有两个步骤。首先，你需要找到一个尚未解决的法律问题。如果国际法院已经对某一问题作出裁决，那么反对方很难对此提出异议。今年我们遇到了入境管制问题，这个问题显然是悬而未决的，因为未有裁判对IHR做出任何解释。就外交庇护而言，目前有一份国际法院1950年的判决，但在这个问题的某些方面仍不清晰。击落民用飞机通常是非法的，但打击错误、自卫相关议题同该领域的相关性暂不明晰。

The second step is to then tailor the facts so that credible arguments on the legal issue can be made from both sides. To give an example, I knew from the beginning I wanted the students to debate whether a strict entry regulation violated international law. But the exact terms of that regulation could be manipulated to balance out the equities. So for example we played with the length of time that had to elapse before a non-Ranovstayan national who had been to a “high-risk country” could enter Ranovstayo. It started as 14 days but ended up at 18 days.

第二步是调整事实，以便双方都能就法律问题提出可信的论据。举个例子，我从一开始就知道我希望学生们将辩论严格的入境规定是否违反国际法。就此，可以通过调整国家入境法规的具体措辞以实现案件双方的平衡。例如，我们计算了一个去过“高风险国家”的非Ranovstayo国民可以进入Ranovstayo所需的时间，开始是14天、最后是18天。

Competitors and coaches tend to look for ‘hints’ in the Problem that tell you which legal issues are supposed to be argued. I have crowdsourced some questions from students in preparation for this interview that seem to confirm this, because almost all of them are along the lines of ‘were we supposed to argue x in submission y’? Is this something that you think about as an author?

参赛者和教练都倾向于从赛题中寻找应该被讨论的问题的提示。为了准备这次采访，我从学生那里收集了一些问题，而这些问题似乎证实了这一点，因为几乎所有的学生都会考虑：“我们应该在对y的意见中讨论x吗？”作为赛题作者，您会考虑这个问题吗？

In general, not really. There are certain main issues I want to be discussed, but they are usually pretty clear, such as an aircraft being shot down or an entry restriction. As for the sub-issues, if anything, I actually prefer to not give hints because I like the idea of creating a factual scenario with a live legal issue, and then just letting the students use their creativity to come up with any arguments they can to support their position.

一般来说，我不会。确实有一些主要问题是我希望被讨论到的，但是它们通常都非常清晰明显，例如飞机被击落或者入境管制。至于子问题，我实际上更喜欢不给出提示，因为我喜欢用一个真实的法律问题来创造一个真实的场景，然后让学生利用他们的创造力提出任何能支持自己立场的论点。

What would you say makes a good Jessup Problem?

您认为是什么造就了一个好的Jessup赛题？

I would say there are three main things. The first thing is, you need exciting, timely legal issues, because I think that just makes things more interesting for everyone – the competitors, the coaches, the advisers, the judges, the administrators.

我认为主要有三点。第一，需要有一个激动人心、紧跟时事的法律问题，因为我认为那会让每个人——包括参赛者、教练、顾问、法官、行政人员——都觉得比赛更加有趣。

The second thing is, each main issue needs to be balanced. That is, there should be good legal arguments on both sides. The reason for this is obvious – teams need to actually be able to have a debate.

第二，每个主要问题都需要保持平衡。也就是说，双方都应该有很好的法律依据。这样做的原因是显而易见的：要让双方队伍都能够进行辩论。

The third element that I think is very important – and there may be different views on this – is that the principal areas of the debate should be legal, rather than factual. So there need to be relevant legal authorities on the issues at stake, such as jurisprudence and commentary. I feel that, at the end of the day, the Jessup is a competition for students to learn international law. If they spend most of their time researching and developing arguments on legal issues, that’s something they can take with them as they move forward in their careers. But if the students instead focus on memorizing the facts of the Problem, that’s not necessarily something that will benefit them in the future, as the Problem of course is entirely fictional.

我认为非常重要的第三个要素是：辩论的主要领域应该在于法律，而不是事实。当然，其他人对此可能会有不同观点。我认为要达到这个要求，在涉及的问题上就需要有诸如先例和评注等相关的法律权威材料。我觉得归根结底，Jessup是学生学习国际法的竞赛。他们应该把大部分时间花在研究和阐述相关法律问题的论据上，这是他们在职业生涯中都可以用到的东西。但是，如果学生们把注意力放在记忆赛题的事实上，对他们的未来可能就没有任何助益，因为赛题完全是虚构的。

One could argue that working with and arguing about facts is a skill that transitions beyond a fictitious case, though.

有人可能会争辩说，处理和争论事实是一种超越虚构案例的技巧。

That’s a fair point, and the Problem will always have facts and those skills will be honed as well. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that you want students to develop the skills to use facts and apply the law to them, but you don’t want them to get bogged down in what the facts actually are. Another point that might be worth raising: the Jessup has hundreds of volunteer judges and they generally don’t have the time to study the Problem as much as the students. So, it’s better if the facts are as concise as possible so that the judges can understand them quickly and ask the students about them in an oral round.

这是一个合理的观点。赛题将始终包含事实，而那些技能也将得到磨练。我想说的是，我们希望学生掌握运用事实和适用法律的技能，但是不想让他们陷入纠结事实到底是什么的困境。另一个值得一提的问题是：Jessup有数百名志愿法官，而他们通常没有时间像学生那样研究赛题。因此，最好使事实尽可能简洁，以便法官能够快速理解事实，并在口头辩论中询问学生有关事实。

Almost every Jessup Problem has some more or less obscure ‘easter eggs’ to be found by attentive readers, but you are taking this to another level. In your cases, almost every name or place has some sort of meaning – if you understand a lot of different languages, that is. Is this just you having some fun or is there a deeper thought behind it?

几乎每年的Jessup赛题都或多或少地有隐秘“彩蛋”等待细心的读者发现，但你将其拔高到了新高度。在你出的赛题中，几乎每个人名或地名都有某种意义——如果读者掌握多门语言。这只是出于乐趣？还是背后有更深层的想法？

Both. As an author, I want to give the Problem as much meaning and depth as possible and I think one fun way to do that is through the names. What I did this year, and also in 2018, was to have the names all come from foreign language proverbs, sayings or phrases that relate to the person or place with that name.

两者都有。作为作者，我想尽可能地赋予赛题更多意义和深度。我认为做到这一点的一个有趣的方法正是命名。我今年所做的，也是在2018年所做的，是让名字都来自于相关的外国谚语、俗语或短语。

There’s also another purpose behind doing this, and that is to remind students that international law is not monolingual. The reality is, in practice, when you’re dealing with multiple, diverse countries you have names in different languages, and sometimes you have to pronounce them.

这样做还有另一个目的，那就是提醒学生，国际法不是单语种的。现实情况是，在实践中，当你与多个不同的国家打交道时，你会遇到不同语言的名字，有时你必须读出它们。

Another reason I did this in 2018 is that I was hoping that at the International Rounds in Washington, D.C. students from different parts of the world would come together and the names would kind of serve as an icebreaker. So, there could be a German student saying ‘oh, did you know that “Keinblat Vormund” actually comes from this German saying’ and there could be a Chinese student saying ‘oh, by the way, “Gwo Hye” has this meaning in Mandarin’. So, I was deliberately doing this to foster communication between teams from different countries.

我在2018年这样做的另一个原因是，我希望在华盛顿特区举行的国际赛上，来自世界不同地区的学生聚在一起，这些名字可以帮助破冰。可能会有一名德国学生说“‘Keinblat Vormund’实际上来自这句德国俗语”，也可能有一名中国学生说“哦，顺便一提，‘Gwo Hye’在普通话中有这个意思。”所以我是有意这样设计的，以促进来自不同国家赛队之间的交流。

Do you actually speak all these languages?

你真的会说所有这些语言吗？

(laughs) Definitely not. I do speak the six UN languages, that is, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. And although I’m not entirely fluent in all of them, for those languages, it’s easier for me to come up with something that works. For example, the names of Respondent and its capital come from the Russian proverb ‘kto rano vstayot, tomu bog padayot’ (Кто рано встает, тому Бог подает), which was the very first proverb I learned when I lived in Kyrgyzstan. It’s essentially the Russian equivalent of ‘the early bird catches the worm’, which I thought adequately described Ranovstayo’s attitude towards dealing with the pandemic.

（笑）绝对不是。我确实会说六种联合国工作语言，即阿拉伯语、中文、英语、法语、俄语和西班牙语。虽然我不是完全精通，但它们使我更容易想出一些可行的命名办法。例如，Ranovstayo及其首都的名字来自俄罗斯谚语“Кто рано встает, тому Бог подает”。这是我在吉尔吉斯斯坦生活时学到的第一句谚语。这基本上相当于俄语中“早起的鸟儿有虫吃”，我认为这充分描述了Ranovstayo对处理这一流行病的态度。

Do you have a favourite name from this year’s Problem?

在今年的赛题中，你有最喜欢的名字吗？

I guess my favourite would be the name that has the most depth, which this year would probably be ‘Segura’. It comes from the Spanish proverb ‘a Seguro se lo llevaron preso’, but there are three relevant meanings. First, the proverb could be literally translated as ‘to Safety they took him prisoner’, which is a reference to how Aprepluya quarantined Segura Province, effectively taking the residents prisoner for general safety. Second, the modern meaning of the proverb is ‘anything can happen’, which reflects how something as unexpected as a province-wide quarantine can occur. Third and finally, the proverb historically refers to a village called Segura, where there was a prison known to have very difficult conditions, reflecting how Segura Province was in turmoil after the quarantine was imposed. The fact that there are three levels of meaning that all sort of work with the plot of the Problem in my mind made it a very appropriate name.

我想我最喜欢的是最有深度的名字，今年应该是“Segura”。它来自西班牙谚语‘a Seguro se lo llevaron preso’，但与之相关的有三个含义。首先，这句谚语可以从字面上翻译为“为了安全，他们把他囚禁起来（这句是机翻） ”，暗指Aprepluya隔离Segura省，实际上是为了总体安全把居民“囚禁”起来。第二，这句谚语的现代含义是“任何事情都可能发生”，这暗指全省隔离这样始料未及的事情也有可能发生。第三，这句谚语在历史上指向一个叫Segura的村庄，那里有一所监狱，据说条件非常艰苦。这暗指Segura省在实施全省隔离后陷入动荡。事实上，Segura有三层意思，而且都与我心目中赛题情节有关，这使它成为一个非常合适的名字。

By now, another of your signature moves – you have done it twice in two years now – is to deviate from the tradition of calling the Problem a ‘Compromis’ or ‘Special Agreement’ and instead calling it a ‘Statement of Agreed Facts’. In 2018, this was definitely a big change, and everyone, students and judges, kept using the word ‘Compromis’ and then correcting themselves. Why do you insist on annoying us?

截止目前，你的另一个招牌动作—你已经在两年内做了两次—是偏离了将赛题称为“Compromis”或“Special Agreement”的传统，而是将其称为“Statement of Agreed Facts”。在2018年，这无疑是一个很大的变化。每个人，学生和法官，都不断使用“Compromis”然后纠正自己。为什么你要让我们心烦呢？

(laughs) Well, one of my goals as author is actually to annoy the competitors as much as possible. I’m glad to hear that I succeeded. Kidding, of course.

（笑）好吧，作为作者，我的目标之一实际上是尽可能地惹恼参赛选手。很高兴听到我成功了。当然，这是开玩笑。

So, legally, there is a compromis only if the two parties agree to submit the specific dispute to the ICJ. But in 2018 and this year, the Court’s jurisdiction was not based on a special agreement of the parties, but rather on a compromissory clause and optional clause declarations, respectively. In these instances, there is no compromis.

从法律上讲，只有在双方同意将具体争端提交给国际法院的情况下，才会有Compromis[1]。但在2018年和今年，法院的管辖权不是基于双方的特别协议，而是分别基于协定管辖条款（compromissory）[2]和任择条款（optional clause declarations）[3]。因此在这些年份的赛题中不存在compromis。

The reason why I did this was to better reflect reality, which is that the large majority of cases brought to the ICJ are not via compromis. These days, they are usually brought under a compromissory clause. So I didn’t want students having participated in Jessup for multiple years to think that all ICJ cases are brought by compromis.

我这样做的原因是为了更好地反映现实，提交给国际法院的绝大多数案件都不通过compromis。近年来，它们通常是根据compromissory条款提交的。因此，我不希望多次参加Jessup的学生认为所有国际法院的案件都是通过compromis提交的。

I should add that, while I did want to move away from the paradigm of the compromis, I did not include this in my initial 2018 proposal because I did not want to propose something so different from the past. But it turned out that a couple senior members of the editorial committee had also thought about moving away from the compromis paradigm, so I jumped on that and said ‘yes, let’s do it’. It was nice how the stars aligned there.

应该补充的是，虽然我确实想摆脱compromis的范式，但我并没有把这一点列入我最初的2018年提案中，因为我不想提出与过去如此不同的东西。但事实证明，编委会的几位资深成员也曾想过摆脱compromis模式，所以我跳出来说“好，让我们来改变吧”。这样和谐一致的开始真是太好了。

[1] 自愿管辖，参见《国际法院规约》第36条第1款。

[2] 协定管辖，参见《国际法院规约》第36条第1款。

[3] 任意强制管辖，参见《国际法院规约》第36条第2款。

You have judged both in 2018 and this year. How does it feel to see students working with your case?

你在2018年和今年都做过评委。看到学生们研究你撰写的赛题，感觉如何？

It’s really fulfilling. For months, you feel like the Problem is just some words on a piece of paper, a short story that might or might not be read. But when you’re judging that first oral round, the students bring it to life. And it’s only at that point that you fully realize, thousands of students have not only read the Problem multiple times, but have also analysed it to death. It’s quite a contrast with the academic articles I’ve published, where it would be a miracle if any one of them has been read by more than five people – and those five people probably just needed a sleeping aid.

这真的很有成就感。几个月来，你觉得赛题只是纸上的文字，一个可读可不读的短篇故事。但在第一轮庭辩时，学生们把它带到了现实中。只有在那个时候你才意识到，成千的学生不仅反复阅读了这份赛题，而且还把它分析得很透彻。这与我发表的学术文章形成了鲜明的对比，任何一篇文章被超过五个人阅读都是一个奇迹——而这五个人可能只是需要一个助眠剂。

One interesting issue that arises sometimes during oral rounds is that, as the author, you prepared so many drafts of the Problem that you sometimes don’t remember what actually ended up in the final version.

在庭辩中有时会出现一个有趣的情况。作为作者，你准备了这么多版赛题草案，以至于有时都不记得最终版中到底有哪些内容了。

Have you ever asked a question or raised a particular issue only to then realize that it is actually not in the Problem?

你是否有过提出一个问题后发现它实际上不在赛题里的经历？

I could certainly see that happening, but I don’t recall any such instance. Usually, if I’m uncertain about a fact, I’ll say something like ‘in the Problem, doesn’t it say xyz?’. And then the pleader will clarify. The bottom line is that the students often know the facts better than the author!

我当然可以预料到这种情况，但我不记得有这样的例子。通常，如果我对一个事实不确定，我会说“赛题不是说了吗？”然后选手会加以澄清。结果通常是学生们比作者更了解事实！

Did you encounter any unexpected arguments while judging this year?

你在裁判今年的比赛时，有没有遇到过一些出人意料的论点？

I remember one instance in one of my early rounds, with the third issue on jurisdiction and the self-judging nature of Aprepluya’s reservation. I had only intended for the self-judging wording to apply to the ‘domestic jurisdiction’ part of the clause. However, one student made the argument that the self-judging language also applied to the ‘military activities’ part. I had to actually look back at the Problem and I then realized ‘oh yeah, the way that I wrote it, it could potentially be interpreted that way’. As I judged more oral rounds, I realized that many teams made this argument.

我记得一个在赛程初期的例子，是关于第三个管辖权问题和Aprepluya保留条款的自我裁决性的。我只是想让“自我裁决”这个词适用于条款的“国内管辖权”部分，但是有一位学生将它同时适用于“军事行动”这一部分。我只能回顾了赛题，然后发现“啊确实，根据我当时的表述，它确实可以这样来解读”。在裁判了更多轮比赛以后，我发现更多队伍提出了这个主张。

I think this shows that, as the author, you put the Problem down on paper and after you’ve done that, the students can interpret it however they want. It is no longer what it was in your mind, it’s the written word that counts.

我认为这表明，我作为作者写下这个赛题后，学生们可以随心所欲地去解读它。重要的不是我脑子里的赛题，而是我写下后的这份赛题。

There must be points during pleading where students claim something that you know is not actually in the facts. Is it hard not to say, ‘I wrote this, I know this is not true!’?

学生们一定会提出一些您知道并非赛题中事实的点。您是否会非常想说“这是我写的题，我知道并不是这样的”？

(laughs) My reaction is usually the opposite, in that I tend to defer to the students on the facts because I am afraid that I am confusing it with an earlier draft or potentially also what I had intended to write. At the end of the day, the final text is what matters because that’s what the students are given to analyse. So usually, if a student mentions something from the Problem where I think ‘this is not actually what it says’, I would first turn to the Problem itself to make sure it actually says what I think it says before trying to challenge the student.

（笑）我的反应恰恰相反，因为我更倾向于在事实上听从学生的意见，因为我担心自己把这个赛题和之前的稿子弄混了，或者这可能是我打算写的。在（敲定赛题）的最后一天，最后的那份定稿才是最重要的，因为那是学生需要去分析的内容。所以通常来说，如果学生提到了一些我认为“并非赛题的实际意思”的点，我首先会去查找赛题，确定下它的含义是否是我认为的那样，而不是先去反驳学生。

You practice before the ICJ. How does the Jessup compare to the ‘real thing’ in your opinion? Some would say that the Jessup is an ‘Americanised’ version of ICJ proceedings.

你曾有在国际法院的实践经历。你认为Jessup和“真实诉讼”相比有何不同？有些人认为Jessup是国际法院诉讼的美国化版本。

Great question. I certainly see why one would say that the Jessup is ‘Americanised’. After all, it was originally a US competition.

好问题。我当然知道为什么有人会说Jessup是美国化的。但无论如何，这确实是一个源于美国的比赛。

The main difference between the Jessup and the ICJ is in the way questions are asked during oral pleadings. In the Jessup, the judges interrupt the pleaders with questions, and they have to respond on the spot, just as would be the case in US courts. But that’s something you don’t see before the ICJ. The Court does sometimes ask the parties questions, but usually only at the end of a sitting, and then the parties have time to prepare their responses, which are to be given in their next set of oral submissions, or after the hearing in writing. I have to say, the way things are done in the Jessup makes things much more exciting and also a much better educational tool than it would otherwise be if it were to actually mirror reality.

Jessup和国际法院之间最主要的区别在于口头陈述时法官提问的方式。在Jessup中，法官会用提问打断陈述者，陈述者必须当场回答，就像在美国法庭上那样。但是这在国际法院是不会发生的。国际法院的法官确实有时会问些问题，但通常是在庭审结束时，此后诉讼各方就有时间为他们的回答作准备，然后在下一次提出口头意见时回答或在庭后书面作答。我想说的是，相比完全照搬国际法院的诉讼方式，Jessup的方式时更为令人激动的，且更具有教育功能。

Another small thing is, interestingly, even though the Judges are ‘Excellencies’ in international diplomacy, in the oral pleadings, you very rarely see a speaker actually say, ‘Your Excellency’. If at any point in time they wish to refer to the judges they usually call them ‘Members of the Court’. My guess would be that the Jessup tradition of calling judges ‘Your Excellency’ comes from the fact that in the US we address judges as ‘Your Honor’.

另一件有趣的小事是，（在国际法院），即便法官在国际外交中是“阁下”，但在口头陈述时，你很少会听到陈述者说“阁下”（Your Excellency）。在他们需要提到法官的时候，他们往往会使用“法院成员”（Members of the Court）来指代。我猜测Jessup叫法官“Your Excellency”的传统来自于美国庭审中对法官“Your Honor”的称呼。

Similarly, we call the pleaders ‘agents’ in the Jessup, but in ICJ proceedings, while the ‘agent’ is the person who is in charge of a delegation representing a State, he or she is usually a government official who just makes the opening and closing remarks on behalf of the government. The individuals making the legal arguments are called ‘counsel’ or ‘advocates’, and they are addressed simply as ‘Mr. X’, ‘Ms. Y’ or ‘Professor Z’.

类似的是，我们在Jessup中将陈述者称为“agent”，但在国际法院诉讼中，“agent”往往指的是某个国家的代表人，其往往是一个政府官员，代表国家政府作开场白和结束语。而作出法律阐述的人往往被称作“counsel”或“advocate”，并通过“Mr. X”（某先生）、“Ms. Y”（某女士）或“Professor Z”（某教授）来称呼他们。

You said that the oral pleadings are different, but in terms of preparing the written submissions to the ICJ, would you say that the Jessup in this regard mirrors what you do before the Court?

你刚才提到两种口头陈述是不同的，但就书状的准备，您是否认为Jessup的做法与在国际法院的做法是相同的呢？

Yes, written pleadings in the Jessup are generally similar to written pleadings before the ICJ. The big difference, though, is length. Written submissions to the ICJ in practice are often very long, and accompanied by many annexes. By contrast, the Jessup imposes a strict word count on the memorials submitted by teams, and there are no annexes. This forces students to tackle a lot of different legal issues with a very limited word count, which I think is a good thing for Jessup, as it gives students a broader exposure to the world of international law.

是的，Jessup中的书状通常与国际法院是类似的。最大的不同在于文书的长短。提交给国际法院的书面意见常常是非常长的，且会有很多附件。而Jessup对参赛队伍提交的文书是有严格字数限制的，且没有附件。这迫使学生们在非常有限的字数内处理许多不同的法律问题，我认为这是Jessup非常好的一点，因为它让学生更广泛地去了解国际法的世界。

There are many other minor differences, which again I think owe to the fact that the Jessup was originally a US competition. One example is the way the written pleadings are structured. You have to have an index of authorities in the beginning, and there’s a statement of questions presented. You don’t have that in the ICJ, but you do see that in legal briefs for US courts.

两者之间还有一些小差异，我认为其原因在于Jeesup是一个起源于美国的比赛。其中的一个例子便是书状的组织形式。（在Jessup中），开头会有一个引注的索引，还有对所讨论问题的陈述。但这在国际法院是不存在的，而仅仅会在美国法院中见到。

Has the Jessup gotten closer to the reality of the ICJ with this year’s virtual rounds?

通过今年的线上比赛形式，Jessup是否和ICJ的现实情况更为接近了呢？

That’s an interesting question, and one that I hadn’t thought of. Because of the pandemic, the ICJ moved to virtual hearings last year and I participated in one. More recently, I participated in a hybrid hearing, where some members of the Court and the delegations were physically in The Hague and others were participating virtually. This year’s Jessup was completely virtual.

这是一个有趣的问题，我还没有想过。由于疫情的缘故，国际法院在去年变为线上举办听证会，我参与过一次。我最近还参加了一个混合听证会，法院的部分成员以及代表团们在海牙实际出席，而另一些人则线上参与。今年的Jessup却采用了完全的线上形式。

One could say that the virtual aspect might bring the two experiences closer together, because, in both cases, many if not most individuals are on computer screens. Someone pleading before the ICJ could be sitting at a desk at home wearing a suit and tie, and ideally also pants. And a student participating in Jessup could be doing the same exact thing. Also, the logistics of setting up a webcam at home, positioning it right, adjusting the lighting, selecting a background – these are all things that both ICJ pleaders and Jessup competitors would have to pay attention to.

有人可能认为线上的形式使得Jessup和国际法院更为接近，因为在这两种情况下，许多人（即使不是大多数）都在电脑屏幕前参加。在国际法院进行陈述的人可以坐在家里的办公桌前，穿着西装打着领带，最好再穿个西裤。参加Jessup的学生可以同样如此。另外，在家里安装摄像头、正确摆放、调整光线，并挑选背景等工作，这些都是国际法院律师和Jessup参赛者均需要注意的。

Do you plan on writing another Jessup Problem any time soon?

近期您是否有计划撰写又一份Jessup赛题？

Not anytime soon. Maybe in the future if some interesting legal issue arises that I think would be perfect for a Jessup Problem, and if I have the time, I might submit another proposal. But I have no plan to do so in the near future.

近期不会。或许未来我会发现一些可用作Jessup赛题的有趣的法律问题，在我有空的情况下，我可能会提交一份赛题提案。但近期我没有这个打算。

Do you have any advice for future authors, or those who want to become authors?

对于未来的赛题作者、以及想要成为作者的人，您有什么建议呢？

For future authors, I would say, enjoy the experience and appreciate the process. Although it can be overwhelming to receive ten sets of editorial committee comments on each draft, it is on the whole a very enriching and rewarding experience to have. Both in 2018 and this year, I think I learned a lot from going through that process.

对未来的赛题作者我想说，享受这个经历和过程。虽然每一稿都会收到十套编辑委员会的意见，但总的来说这是个非常充实和有意义的经历。2018年和今年，我都在此过程中收获颇丰。

And for those who want to become authors, my advice would be simple: submit a proposal! ILSA puts out a call for proposals usually towards the end of each calendar year, and anyone and everyone can make a submission. Moreover, the Association is very open-minded in selecting authors. It’s just about putting forward your ideas and seeing what ILSA decides to go forward with.

而对于那些想成为作者的人，我的建议非常简单：写一个提案吧！ILSA通常在每年年底都会征集赛题提案，任何人都可以去提交。此外，ILSA在挑选作者时也是非常开明的。你只需要提出你的想法，然后看看ILSA会作何选择。

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