Where is the White & Case Paris Vis Pre-Moot held?

The pre-moot is held in Paris, FRA.

When does the White & Case Paris Vis Pre-Moot take place?

The pre-moot is scheduled for a single day in March.

White & Case Paris Vis Pre-Moot 2026

Mar 20–20, 2026Paris, FranceIn-person

ConcludedRegistration closed

The White & Case Paris Vis Pre-Moot is an essential preparatory event for teams participating in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. Hosted in Paris, FRA, this pre-moot provides a vital platform for participants to refine their arguments and advocacy skills in a simulated arbitration environment. It is designed to mirror the structure and intensity of the main Vis Moot, allowing teams to receive valuable feedback before the global competition.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the dominant committee topic. Click through for the full country profile.

France

Host nation and a key center for international arbitration.

Role in topic

As the host country, FRA provides the venue for this significant pre-moot, underscoring its role as a leading jurisdiction for international commercial arbitration. Its legal community often contributes arbitrators and experts, enriching the competition's quality.

Topics & background

The history behind each committee topic and the states that shape it.

General Assembly (GA)

United Nations General Assembly: Reform and the Multilateral Order

The General Assembly, established under Chapter IV of the UN Charter in 1945, is the only UN organ in which all 193 member states sit on equal footing. While its resolutions are non-binding, the GA has historically driven normative breakthroughs from decolonization in the 1960s to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. In recent years, however, the body has faced a credibility test: paralysis in the Security Council over Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan has pushed states to revive instruments such as the 'Uniting for Peace' procedure and the April 2022 veto-initiative resolution (A/RES/76/262), which requires the GA to debate any veto cast in the Council. The Pact for the Future, adopted in September 2024, set out an ambitious reform agenda spanning Security Council composition, international financial architecture, and governance of emerging technologies. Implementation has been uneven. Developing states, organized through the G77 and African Group, press for more equitable representation and resource flows, while several Western and like-minded states emphasize protection of the existing rules-based order amid renewed great-power rivalry. Today the GA's debate centers on whether it can act as a genuine deliberative counterweight when the Council is deadlocked, and how to translate the Pact for the Future from declaration into operational reform without fracturing consensus across regional blocs.

Key players

Security Council (SC)

United Nations Security Council: Sudan, Cyber Norms, and Council Deadlock

Created in 1945 to maintain international peace and security, the Security Council combines five veto-wielding permanent members with ten elected members. Its binding Chapter VII authority distinguishes it from every other UN organ, but the veto and divergent strategic interests among the P5 have repeatedly stalled action on the gravest crises of the past decade, from Syria to Ukraine. Two issues dominate the present agenda: the war in Sudan and the contested terrain of state behavior in cyberspace. Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces erupted in April 2023, generating what UN agencies describe as the world's largest displacement crisis, with famine conditions confirmed in parts of Darfur and Kordofan. The arms embargo established under Resolution 1591 (2005) is widely reported to be violated, and Council members differ sharply on expansion of sanctions, humanitarian corridors, and possible referral pathways through the International Criminal Court. In parallel, the Open-Ended Working Group on ICTs has advanced a framework of voluntary norms for responsible state behavior, but attribution of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure - hospitals, energy grids, financial systems - remains politically explosive. The Council is debating whether existing international law, including the UN Charter's prohibitions on the use of force, requires binding clarification for the cyber domain.

Key players

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Food and Agriculture Organization: Food Security Amid Conflict and Climate Shocks

Founded in 1945 as the first specialized agency of the new UN system, the FAO is mandated to defeat hunger and improve nutrition, agricultural productivity, and rural livelihoods. Its early decades focused on the Green Revolution and technical assistance; since the 1996 World Food Summit and the adoption of SDG 2 in 2015, the agenda has shifted toward food systems transformation, climate-resilient agriculture, and the right to food. The current period is shaped by overlapping shocks. The war in Ukraine disrupted Black Sea grain and fertilizer flows in 2022-2023; the Black Sea Grain Initiative collapsed in July 2023, raising prices for import-dependent states in Africa and the Middle East. Conflicts in Sudan, Gaza, Yemen, and the Sahel have produced acute IPC Phase 4 and 5 conditions, while El Niño-driven droughts and floods have repeatedly tested early-warning systems. The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit and its 2023 stocktaking pushed states toward national pathways, but financing remains the binding constraint. FAO's debate today centers on how to operationalize anticipatory action, regulate agricultural trade restrictions during crises, and align food systems with both climate adaptation and the Convention on Biological Diversity's Kunming-Montreal targets.

Key players

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

UNHCR: Protracted Displacement and the Limits of the 1951 Refugee Regime

UNHCR was established by the General Assembly in 1950 to address post-war displacement in Europe and given its legal anchor in the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol. Originally envisioned as a temporary body, the agency has been repeatedly renewed and now protects more than 120 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide, the highest figure ever recorded. Displacement drivers have multiplied beyond the Convention's persecution-based definition to include generalized violence, climate shocks, and state collapse. The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees sought to operationalize responsibility-sharing through the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, but implementation has been uneven. Major hosting states - Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Uganda, Colombia, Germany - increasingly question the durability of donor commitments. Pakistan's 2023 expulsion order for undocumented Afghans, tightening EU external border policies, and the contested status of Rohingya in Bangladesh illustrate the strain on the protection regime. Climate-related displacement, projected by the World Bank's Groundswell reports to reach hundreds of millions by 2050, sits awkwardly outside the Convention framework. The present debate concerns how to finance protracted situations, whether to expand complementary protection pathways, and how UNHCR should coordinate with development actors and climate finance mechanisms without diluting its protection mandate.

Key players

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

Economic and Social Council: Sovereign Debt and Digital Public Infrastructure

Established as a principal organ under the UN Charter, ECOSOC coordinates the economic, social, and related work of the UN system and its specialized agencies. Its 54 elected members oversee the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, the Financing for Development process, and the functional commissions on statistics, population, and social development. With the 2030 Agenda at its midpoint and most SDG indicators off-track, ECOSOC's coordinating role has assumed greater political weight. Two dossiers dominate. First, sovereign debt: more than half of low-income countries are in or near debt distress, and the G20 Common Framework agreed in 2020 has delivered slow, contested restructurings for Zambia, Ghana, and others. African and Latin American debtors have pushed for a UN-led sovereign debt workout mechanism, a proposal advanced in the run-up to the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville in 2025. Second, digital public infrastructure: the Global Digital Compact adopted as an annex to the Pact for the Future in 2024 commits states to inclusive, interoperable DPI - identity, payments, data exchange - as enablers of the SDGs, raising questions of governance, privacy, and cross-border data flows. ECOSOC's challenge is to align these strands with the broader Financing for Development outcomes and to give operational meaning to commitments that remain politically contested across the North-South divide.

Key players

UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC)

UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime: Cyber-Enabled Crime and Trafficking Networks

Adopted by the General Assembly in November 2000 and entered into force in 2003, the Palermo Convention (UNTOC) is the principal global instrument against transnational organized crime. It is supplemented by three protocols on trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants, and trafficking in firearms. With 191 states parties, UNTOC has near-universal membership, but its review mechanism - established only in 2018 after years of negotiation - remains in early implementation, and enforcement varies widely. The criminal landscape has shifted dramatically since 2000. Online scam compounds in Southeast Asia, fentanyl precursor flows from East Asia to North America, illicit gold and timber trafficking out of the Amazon and Congo Basin, and ransomware-as-a-service marketplaces have outpaced national law-enforcement capacities. The newly concluded UN Convention against Cybercrime, adopted by the GA in December 2024, intersects with UNTOC's mandate and has generated controversy over human-rights safeguards in cross-border data requests. Sanctions evasion, including by sanctioned states using cryptocurrency rails, further complicates the picture. Debate today concerns how to strengthen mutual legal assistance, regulate virtual asset service providers, and coordinate UNTOC's protocols with the new cybercrime treaty without weakening due-process protections.

Key players

United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)

United Nations Environment Assembly: Plastics Treaty and the Triple Planetary Crisis

UNEA was created in 2012 at the Rio+20 Conference as the universal-membership governing body of the UN Environment Programme, replacing the earlier 58-member Governing Council. Meeting biennially in Nairobi, UNEA has become the principal forum for setting global environmental policy beyond the climate and biodiversity COPs, addressing what UNEP frames as the 'triple planetary crisis' of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The defining negotiation of the current cycle is the global plastics treaty mandated by UNEA Resolution 5/14 in March 2022. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee concluded its planned sessions in late 2024 in Busan without consensus, with a coalition led by the EU, small island states, and several Latin American countries pushing for binding caps on primary plastic polymer production, while major oil-and-gas producers - including Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran - resist supply-side measures. Talks have continued into 2025-2026. UNEA also oversees implementation of the Minamata Convention on mercury, the Global Framework on Chemicals adopted in 2023, and the Science-Policy Panel on chemicals, waste, and pollution. The central question is whether UNEA can deliver a credible plastics agreement and operationalize a coherent pollution governance architecture without fracturing along producer-consumer lines.

Key players

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Deterrence, Enlargement, and Burden-Sharing

NATO was founded by the 1949 Washington Treaty as a collective-defense alliance among twelve North Atlantic states, anchored by Article 5's commitment that an armed attack against one is an attack against all. Through the Cold War, the Alliance balanced the Warsaw Pact; after 1991, it expanded eastward in successive rounds, conducted out-of-area operations in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and modernized command structures. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 returned territorial defense to the center of NATO planning, prompting the 2022 Madrid Strategic Concept, the accession of Finland in 2023 and Sweden in 2024, and a 2023 Vilnius commitment to deliver new regional defense plans. The 2025 Hague Summit raised the defense-spending pledge toward 5% of GDP - 3.5% on core defense plus 1.5% on broader security and infrastructure - reflecting both threat perception and U.S. pressure on burden-sharing. Support for Ukraine, including the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) command, remains contested in scope and pace. Simultaneously, the Alliance is grappling with hybrid threats - sabotage of undersea cables, GPS jamming in the Baltic, election interference - and with its evolving posture toward China, designated in the Strategic Concept as posing 'systemic challenges.' Debate today centers on credible deterrence on the eastern flank, the trajectory of Ukrainian membership, transatlantic political cohesion, and how far NATO's mandate extends into the Indo-Pacific and emerging-technology domains.

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before White & Case Paris Vis Pre-Moot 2026, plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

1951 Refugee Convention Aarhus Convention Agreement on Agriculture AU IDP Convention Basel Convention Cash Crops versus Food Crops

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

White & Case Paris Vis Pre-Moot 2026

Mar 20–20, 2026Paris, FranceIn-person

ConcludedRegistration closed

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the dominant committee topic. Click through for the full country profile.

France

Host nation and a key center for international arbitration.

Role in topic

Topics & background

The history behind each committee topic and the states that shape it.

General Assembly (GA)

United Nations General Assembly: Reform and the Multilateral Order

Key players

Security Council (SC)

United Nations Security Council: Sudan, Cyber Norms, and Council Deadlock

Key players

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Food and Agriculture Organization: Food Security Amid Conflict and Climate Shocks

Key players

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

UNHCR: Protracted Displacement and the Limits of the 1951 Refugee Regime

Key players

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

Economic and Social Council: Sovereign Debt and Digital Public Infrastructure

Key players

UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC)

UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime: Cyber-Enabled Crime and Trafficking Networks

Key players

United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)

United Nations Environment Assembly: Plastics Treaty and the Triple Planetary Crisis

Key players

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Deterrence, Enlargement, and Burden-Sharing

Key players

Key terms & resources

The concepts worth knowing before White & Case Paris Vis Pre-Moot 2026, plus lessons and profiles to go deeper.

1951 Refugee Convention Aarhus Convention Agreement on Agriculture AU IDP Convention Basel Convention Cash Crops versus Food Crops

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Key terms & resources

Frequently asked questions

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Country perspectives

Topics & background

Key terms & resources

Frequently asked questions

Related conferences

René Cassin Advocacy Competition 2026

Concours Charles Rousseau 2026

41ème concours francophone de procès simulé en droit international Charles-Rousseau

Concours d'Arbitrage International de Paris (CAIP) 2026

Prix Lehérissel-Dibout du Meilleur Étudiant Fiscaliste 2026

Prix Lehérissel‑Dibout du Meilleur Étudiant Fiscaliste 2026

Related conferences

René Cassin Advocacy Competition 2026

Concours Charles Rousseau 2026

41ème concours francophone de procès simulé en droit international Charles-Rousseau

Concours d'Arbitrage International de Paris (CAIP) 2026

Prix Lehérissel-Dibout du Meilleur Étudiant Fiscaliste 2026

Prix Lehérissel‑Dibout du Meilleur Étudiant Fiscaliste 2026