Internaonal Business Law The newsleer of the IBL master program, Faculty of Law, University of Macau ISSUE 04, February 2014 — WWW.UMAC.MO/FLL/IBL L egislators, judges, lawyers, legal scholars and many more interested in law, con- stantly produce an ever growing and already almost infinite amount of legal materials that no one can possibly read in a lifeme. This phenomenon has already been recognized by crical concepts like “plethora of law” 1 , “gigantesque mag- ma législaf et réglementaire” (French for “giganc legisla- ve and regulatory magma”) 2 or “Normenflut” and “Gesetzesflut” 3 (German for “flood of norms” or “flood of laws”), or other excessive forms of “juridificaon” 4 . Moreo- ver, more and more of these materials are just a “mouse- click away”, that is to say instantly available via internet search engines (eg , or – if you want to save me to con- sult both – www.baigoogledu.com/), official webpages (eg hps://docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/FE_Search/ FE_S_S001.aspx for the WTO or hps://treaes.un.org/ Pages/UNTSOnline.aspx?id=1 for the United Naons Trea- ty Series UNTS)) or specialised electronic databases (eg LexisNexis, Westlaw, Heinonline). At the same me as the legislave materials, case law and legal wrings proliferate, academic publishers and univer- sies follow this trend by launching many new and ever more specialised legal journals or book series, which fur- ther contributes to the increasing total volume of legal materials. Unfortunate for author planning to submit a manuscript, almost every journal or book publisher has its own rules of citaon or so-called “style guides”. This is not 1 Macau rules of thumb of legal citation? some thoughts about research in view of a plethora of rules of legal citation Rostam J. Neuwirth
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International Business Law The newsletter of the IBL master program, Faculty of Law, University of Macau ISSUE 04, February 2014 — WWW.UMAC.MO/FLL/IBL
L egislators, judges, lawyers,
legal scholars and many
more interested in law, con-
stantly produce an ever growing
and already almost infinite
amount of legal materials that
no one can possibly read in a
lifetime. This phenomenon has
already been recognized by
critical concepts like “plethora of law”1, “gigantesque mag-
ma législatif et réglementaire” (French for “gigantic legisla-
tive and regulatory magma”) 2or “Normenflut” and
“Gesetzesflut” 3(German for “flood of norms” or “flood of
laws”), or other excessive forms of “juridification”4. Moreo-
ver, more and more of these materials are just a “mouse-
click away”, that is to say instantly available via internet
search engines (eg , or – if you want to save time to con-
sult both – www.baigoogledu.com/), official webpages
sequent reader of the academic Things become even more complex, when we try to cite electronic materials, webpages, and
let alone movies or media content.
Research & Study
text that one has completed. The
Graduate School of the University of
Macau, however, has issued Rules on
Handling Academic Dishonesty 5which indirectly provide some guid-
ance about what to avoid and also as
to how to cite correctly.
Finally, in the absence of a Macau
Guide of Uniform Legal Citation,
there are still three principal rules or
“rules of thumb”, which researchers
at the Law Faculty may consider: (1)
A first rule of thumb is
“accessibility”, which means that all
information provided must make it
possible for the reader to find the
cited source in order to be able to
duly identify and verify it; (2) The
second rule of thumb is
“consistency”, meaning that once
an author has adopted a specific
citation style, s/he must follow
and apply it consistently (in differ-
ent languages) throughout the
entire document, article or thesis.
Last but not least, a third rule of
thumb is called the “golden rule of
citation”, which means that you
may want to cite others in a way
you want to see your works cited.
Finally, for all remaining questions,
consult your colleague, course in-
structor or supervisor.
Good luck and lots of fun with le-
gal research in the digital age!
3
The same difficulties encounter postgraduate, both master and PhD students, enrolled in law
faculties of universities around the world, who are in the process of writing their theses or
research papers.
FOOTNOTES
1 See H.P. Glenn, “Persuasive Authority”,
(1987) 32 McGill L. J. 261 at 286.
2 See B. Oppetit, “Les tendances régressives
dans l’évolution du droit contemporain” in J.-F.
Pillebout, ed., Mélanges dédiés à Dominique
Holleaux (Paris: Litec, 1990) 317 at 317.
3 See e.g. the former German President R.
Herzog before the Deutschen Juristentag in
1998 warning of the danger of a flood of norms
by criticising the excessive use of legislation by
the European as well as the German authorities
and calling for the deregulation of the existing
regulatory regime; “Herzog: Das Recht muss
bürgernäher werden. Grundsatzrede auf dem
Deutschen Juristentag”, Süddeutsche Zeitung
(26 September 1998) at 6.
4 See G. Teubner, “Juridification: Concepts,
Aspects, Limits, Solutions” in G. Teubner, ed.,
Juridification of Social Spheres (Berlin: Walter
de Gruyter, 1987)
5 UM Rules on Handling Academic Dishonesty,
available at: http://www.umac.mo/grs/
Plagiarism%20and%20Academic% 20Honesty/
rules_ student_ academic_dishonesty.pdf.
Research & Study
4
THE MOOT AND ADVOCACY
IBL Master Program Students’ Interview with Professor Sten Idris Verhoeven
We are honored to interview Professor Sten Idris Verhoeven who is one of the training teacher of our Moot and Advocacy club (short for MAC). This interview is
mainly about two competitions of the MAC.
Q : Can you briefly introduce the ac-
tivities of MAC this year?
S: This year, we participate in two moot
court competitions. Both are dealing
with issues of international law and
those issues are related to the future we
care about. One is the Philip C. Jessup
International Law Moot Court Competi-
tion (in short Jessup). This competition is
worldwide, around 200 teams partici-
pate in it, and it develops new cases eve-
ry year. The topic of this year is about
“law of the sea”. Last year, the problem
addresses the factual and legal conse-
quences of climate change on statehood,
migration, and sovereign lending. Last
year we sent a team and this team
achieved in becoming “the best new
team” of the competition. What we have
to do in the first semester is to prepare a
memorial for both sides, one for the
applicant, one for the respondent. The
second semester we need to prepare for
the oral rounds, to train them how to
answer questions in Ameri-
can style. In the competi-
tion, the judge will ask you
questions and you have to
respond to those questions.
In answering those ques-
tions you need to be very
self-confident.
The second one is also
about international law, but
it is about international
criminal law—The Interna-
tional Criminal Trial Compe-
tition (in short ICC). The
International Criminal Court
is located in The Hague and
the competition also takes place in The
Hague. This competition contain five stu-
dents in a team, the same number as for
Jessup. Last year students in the competi-
tion needed to submit three legal opinions
as prosecutors, defense lawyer and repre-
sentatives of the victim.
Q: Are there any different skills require-
ment in the two competitions?
S: They are not so much different from
each other. Both competitions involve the
same skills: research skills, oral skills and
writing skills. The biggest different is that
in Jessup the judges of the international
round are more argumentative; in the ICC
judges also ask questions, but there is less
debates than in Jessup. But for the rest,
they are very similar.
Q: Is there any relation between these two
competitions?
S: No, these two competitions are inde-
pendent. Jessup has been set up to honor
the Judge of United Nations Interna-
tional Court of Justice, Philip C.
Jessup, and began in 1960. But the
ICC only exists for a couple of years.
Q: What is the standard and process
to choose the students to partici-
pate in those competitions?
S: This is a very good question.
Sometimes it is very hard to disap-
point students. We are looking for a
very special kind of students. So if
you are not selected, don’t be disap-
pointed. We are not saying that you
are bad student. The students we
are looking for, of course, need to
have a very good research skill,
which is one important thing. If you
are good in research, we are looking
for you. But, we also need students
who have good oral skills. Further-
more, the ability to connect to other
people is also important. Sometime
it is very hard to find students that
are both good in research and oral
skills. So, a student with a good re-
search background, but who has less
oral skills, is fine; or someone who
has good oral skills, but lacks in re-
search, can also be selected. Finally,
good writing skills are also im-
portant. We will try to balance the
team. Selecting only five researchers
is not good. And five good speakers
are fine, but if it comes to research it
might cause problems. So we bal-
ance the team with people who are
good in research and also with peo-
ple who do well in oral debate. In
addition, we are also looking for
Research & Study
people who are fitting in the team,
which means that we need team play-
ers as well. So as conclusion, we are
looking for people who are confident,
can work in a team, have good research
skills and good oral skills. If these four
elements are within you, you will make
the best choice for us.
Q: Can the students only participate in
the competition for one year?
S: No. There is no limitation, because
sometimes people need to grow. Before
they participated in the competition,
the selected students had good re-
search skills, but after they took part in
it, they became more confident in Eng-
lish. And if they apply the second year,
of course, they can be selected again.
For the other students, if we don’t se-
lect you this year, you can improve your
skills and apply next year.
Q: If the question involves gray issues,
how do you determine whether the
answer is right or wrong for the compe-
tition?
S: Of course, there are many issues for
which there is no black and white an-
swer. The arguments are not really a
right or wrong. But there are some an-
swers which are stronger and more
convincing; though in the end you can
argue it both sides. So in practice, we
need to find out which argument is go-
ing to be used and which one is strong-
er. As a professor, I have the responsi-
bility to find it out. It is, however, not
possible to tell the students the answer
directly. It is more that I am saying:
“Look, this argument is not convincing.
It is fine. Maybe we have a point. But
let’s make it more convincing.” We are
not going to make the decision for the
team, it is up to the team to make their
decision. We can only give them consul-
tation. We are the coaches and we will
give assistance, but in the end, it is their
own choice and learning experience.
Q: Last year our school obtained a very
good result. Can you tell us the special
characteristics of the team members?
S: Of course, these people did very well,
but you don’t need to treat them as sort of
superhuman beings. Some members in the
team are naturally talented, that is true.
But most people have been training. The
training was on a regular basis, we trained
the oral skills, and each student trained
three or four times a week. Of course, we
put serious pressure on them and it may
even look immoral on some occasions, but
we have a lot of experience in how far we
can push students to improve the written
and oral argument. It sounds difficult but
it is not. It was basically being aware how
to do research, how to write arguments,
how to balance the different arguments,
and how to develop the structure. All of
that is something you can learn. Evidently,
some people were quicker than others to
learn. However, we selected people who
can learn quickly because our time was
limited. We only had a couple of months,
so we had to select those people who can
learn quickly or flexibly. That was the
strength the team had.
Q: We know that your students in the
team will use a “memorial” in the compe-
tition. Can you briefly introduce the con-
cept to us?
S: Memorials are an important part of the
competition. It is written in a very argu-
ment style. A memorial is not the same as
a thesis. In Jessup you have to develop a
story. The memorial is to make your
points in a certain logical order. If you
don’t make your point logically, why
should the judge favor your position? So,
we write it down in very short sentences
each discussing a particularly point. Most-
ly, it only mention several points. You
5
need to be clear what you are going to ar-
gue and your structure must be very logical
to convince people.
Q: Can you tell us some interesting story
about last year?
S: Oh, I need to protect their privacy. They
were all hard working. Some of them were
sometimes hard to persuade. So, we need
to make sure that they changed their mind.
Sometimes we needed to be harsh. Unfor-
tunately, sometimes people have to hit
their head against the wall until they real-
ize that they have to change the argument.
So, we try to protect them not to hit the
wall, to tell them to go back and find the
right way. It is normal that sometimes peo-
ple do more research so that they will often
know more about this area than the pro-
fessor. But, of course, we have our experi-
ence and we know which argument can
work and which doesn’t work. Some argu-
ments can be written down very well on
paper, but are hard to explain orally since
they are too complicated to explain. So we
need to persuade students to change the
pleading. Some students were very shy in
the beginning, but after a while, they
opened up. And they had no problem at all
speaking in public, even in English. I think it
is a very good experience. You see that the
people are evolving, which is the most
beautiful part of it, not the winning. Of
course, winning is nice, so many people
want it. But winning is influenced by so
many elements, you cannot control the
judge. Everyone will make a tiny mistake.
The most important aspect is to see the
students evolving and learning from the
experience.
Thanks to the patience of Professor Sten
Idris Verhoeven, we have discovered a lot
of useful information on the activities of
MAC. We give the best wishes to our
school teams this year. The hardworking of
students and coaches will gain them the
best benefit.
T he IBL Program is pleased to wel-
come Dr. Alexandr Svetlicinii as the
new Assistant Professor the Faculty of
Law University of Macau. Alexandr ob-
tained his legal education at the Free
International University of Moldova in
Chisinau. After completing an LL.M Inter-
national Business Law program at the
Central European University in Buda-
pest, Prof. Svetlicinii pursued his doctor-
al research at the European University
Institute in Florence, where under super-
vision of Prof. Dr. Heike Schweitzer he
defended his dissertation on the legal
rules and economic analysis of the EU
merger control. Prof.Svetlicinii is respon-
sible for teaching Business Law at the
Faculty of Business Administration and
Commercial Contracts at the Faculty of
Law. In the following passages Dr. Svet-
licinii presents himself in various aspects
including among others his professional
and academic experience, teaching and
research interests and the impressions
of the new UM campus.
“I come from the Republic of Moldova, a
small Eastern European country with the
turbulent history, which made its way
from being part of the Romanian state, to
being the republic of the Soviet Union, to
finally gaining independence in 1991 and
currently integrating itself into the Euro-
pean Union after the perusing of the As-
sociation Agrement at the EU Eastern
Partnership summit in Vilnius in Novem-
ber 2013. While Romanian is Moldova’s
official language, Russian is widely spo-
ken. This makes Moldovan people
uniquely bilingual – we can speak one
Latin and one Slavic language using Latin
and Cyrillic alphabets.
The size of the country, its geographic
position, the continuous political, eco-
nomic and social transition has prompted
many Moldovans to go abroad for em-
ployment, education, family reunification
and other personal and professional rea-
sons. Following the path of almost 30% of
my fellow citizens I made a choice to pur-
sue my education and then professional
career outside of my home country. After
completing my legal education in Moldo-
va I was admitted for the International
Business Law LL.M program at the Central
European University in Budapest. The
program had a unique international for-
mat and content: there were no more
than two students from the same country
in our class and the professors from the
top European and US universities deliv-
ered their inspiring lectures on various
specialized business law subjects. Deter-
mined to develop an academic career I
entered the PhD program at the Europe-
an University Institute in Florence to
write a thesis on the role and interaction
of legal rules and economic analysis in
the context of the EU merger control re-
gime. This competition law research re-
quired a great deal of understanding of
economics and the functioning of specific
economic sectors and markets. It also
involved interaction with antitrust en-
forcers, judges, economists and legal
practitioners, which diversified the ap-
proaches and deepened the knowledge.
The competition law has remained the
focus and passion of my academic re-
search and practical work ever since.
It was an honor and pleasure to join the
ranks of international faculty of the Uni-
versity of Macau, Faculty of Law. One of
the main reasons for coming to Macau
was an intention to continue competition
law research with special focus on small
market economies and developing coun-
tries. South-East Asia represents an inter-
esting and challenging case study in this
regard. In 2008 China entrusted the en-
forcement of competition rules to three
different state institutions dividing the
areas of merger control, pricing abuses
and non-price anti-competitive practices.
Research & Study
6
Welcome our new staff!
Dr Alexandr Svetlicinii attends the 9th Annual Asian Competition Fo-
rum Conference in Hong Kong.
Research & Study
Given the significance of the Chinese
economy, international community
(business and legal) are closely following
the legislative developments and en-
forcement practices in China, curious to
see how the free market competition can
be enforced in the framework of a social-
ist economy dominated by the state-
owned enterprises. Hong Kong, an inter-
national business hub, has established its
national competition authority in 2013
and will start actively enforcing its com-
petition legislation in 2014. The ASEAN
countries set out to implement a com-
mon market by 2015. Once in effect, it
should foster penetration of the domes-
tic markets by the foreign companies
thus increasing competition and encour-
aging regional consolidation and cooper-
ation. At the same time it will present a
great challenge for competition law en-
forcement: anti-competitive practices
initiated by companies in one ASEAN
country might have an effect on the mar-
kets of other ASEAN members. In such
conditions the goals of preservation of a
competitive environment within the
ASEAN common market will require a
great deal of harmonization of competi-
tion laws and policies as well as technical
cooperation amongst the national com-
petition authorities. These current devel-
opments present a challenging study
field for a competition law researcher,
which I intend to explore at the Universi-
ty of Macau.
Being a newcomer to Macau, this is not
my first experience in South-East Asia.
Several years ago after the completion of
my master studies I have been very in-
terested in commercial arbitration and
its regional specifics. This interest has
brought me first to Singapore where I
have completed an internship program
with the Singapore International Arbitra-
tion Centre witnessing various commer-
cial disputes with participation of compa-
nies, arbitrators and legal counsel from
various Asian jurisdictions. I also had an
opportunity to observe commercial arbi-
tration in China as it was administered by
the Beijing Arbitration Commission and
Shenzhen-based South China Sub-
Commission of the China International
Economic and Trade Arbitration Commis-
sion (CIETAC). Fascinated by Asian diver-
sity I travelled in the region visiting Cam-
bodia, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
This past experience of working and
learning in South-East Asia made my stay
in Macau easier but not less exciting in
terms of accommodating to the new liv-
ing and working environment. The first
big change was climate as for the past
couple of years I have been living in Esto-
nia, a Nordic European country where
winter was long and daylight scarce. In
this sense Macau felt like a summer holi-
day destination, even though seaside
activities are somewhat limited here.
Another big change was moving to the
new campus, which required lots of pa-
tience, persistence and understanding.
Awaiting the availability of the Staff
Quarters I have been offered temporary
accommodation in one of the residential
colleges, where I stayed in the room in-
tended for two undergraduate students.
So, I got everything double: two beds, two
desks, two chairs, two shelves, etc. This
arrangement was coupled with other tem-
porary inconveniences such as crowded
bus transportation, absence of kitchen
and washing machine, isolation from the
rest of Macau and other “accessories”
that come with the life on the active con-
struction site on the part of the Hengqin
island that only recently has been placed
under the jurisdiction of Macau SAR.
But, as with any other situation, there are
always some advantages. One is the abun-
dance of space, which is luxury in the rest
of Macau. Simple calculations will show
that the inhabitants of the new campus,
or the “pioneers” as we are called by one
of my colleagues, enjoy the greatest space
per person ratio in Macau. As a result,
there are no crowds, no waiting lines
(except in the morning at the bus stop),
no traffic and plenty of space for jogging
and walking. As it will all change later this
year when the new campus will be fully
“domesticated” we might all remember
these as “good old days” when you were
the only person in line for food in the caf-
eteria or the only jogger on the riverside
promenade.”
7
20th anniversary of the EU-Macau
Trade and Cooperation Agreement
8
Events& Activities
O n November 23, 2013 a reception was organized in the Macau Tower by the Government of Macao
Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the European Un-
ion Office to Hong Kong and Macao on the occasion of the celebration of the “20th Anniversary of the Ma-
cau-EU Trade & Cooperation Agreement”.
The Macau-EU Trade & Cooperation Agreement was originally signed in Brussels on June 15, 1992 between
the (then) European Economic Community (EEC) and Macao in order to develop, extend, and deepen the
economic and trade relations as well as to reinforce the existing ties between them by means of coopera-
tion.
As it was stressed by both prominent speakers at the event, ever since the entry into force of the agreement,
the bilateral ties between the parties to the agreement have strengthened not only in terms of trade but also
other areas, such as culture and education. Finally, the extension of the existing strong ties is also exempli-
fied by the signing of an agreement between Macau and the EU “on certain aspects of air ser-
vices” (Horizontal Agreement) on that same day.
The students from the Master program of
International Business Law (IBL) of the Fac-
ulty of Law of the University of Macau were
invited by the Government of Macao Special
Administrative Region (SAR) of the PRC and
the European Union Office to Hong Kong
and Macau to participate in this grand event,
in company with Prof. Rostam J. Neuwirth
and Prof. Alexandr Svetlicinii.
Events& Activities
The European Commission President José Manuel Barroso with UM professors and students
The European Commission President José Manuel Barroso with Prof. Rostam J. Neuwirth ,Prof. Alexandr
Svetlicinii , Prof. Manuel Trigo, Prof. Rui Martins, Prof. Wang Jianwei, and Prof. Song Weiqing (from left