Lixian Yuan

My motivation to study in the Netherlands is because I have heard many times that the Netherlands is the best place to study international law. My International Law teacher is a student of judge Wang Tieya (one of the chief Justices in the Hague International Court of Justice) who also graduated from Tsinghua University. The Netherlands is the place where Judge Wang had worked till the age of 90. The world famous international legal scholar Grotius is also a Dutch person. Therefore I believe the Netherlands is truly a good place to study International Law. As to why I chose the course: for China has been speeding her steps to enter WTO, she truly needs experts in this field. There is lots of work to do in order to meet the requirements of WTO, especially in the revision of law and China’s current social and legal systems. I took an introductive course of WTO last semester in Tsinghua, which was jointly supported by Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Peking University and Tsinghua University. In this class I found great interests in this field and decided to do something to help my country melting into the globalisation of the world economy. So I assisted my teacher who had been appointed by China's semi-governmental organisation – China Law Society Chairman of WTO program (that mainly deals with China’s legal revision to meet WTO demands).

As to the question why I chose Groningen: I had heard that Groningen University is a time-honoured University where many high-ranking European Union officials graduated. From the application brochure and also the academic director of the program Professor Verwey's lecture delivered in TsinghuaLaw School, I had known the details about Groningen and the LL.M. programme and also the warm-hearted Dutch people. I was quite interested in the courses that were provided, and also began to love Groningen – a not large, but peaceful city.

Lixian Yuan, China, Public International Law