A Rhodes Law Faculty team consisting of three penultimate year LLB students, Haruperi Mumbengegwi, Robyn Jones and Rutendo Urenje, and coached by Prof Laurence Juma, emerged the overall winners of the African International Humanitarian Law Moot Competition held in Arusha, Tanzania last week. In addition Haruperi won the award for the best speaker and secured sponsorship to do an internship at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
Every year, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - Regional Delegation in Nairobi – organises the All Africa International Humanitarian Law Moot Court Competition (IHL) in Arusha. The Arusha competition is modelled on the De Martens and Jean Pictet International IHL Competitions, and brings together undergraduate law students from Anglophone Africa to be challenged on matters of IHL and humanitarian action.
Participants are placed in a fictional conflict scenario where they are required to assume the roles of various stakeholders and to demonstrate their legal knowledge and argumentation skills.
The final round of the Competition traditionally takes place in one of the ICTR's Court rooms and is decided by a panel of three sitting judges of the Tribunal.
In the past, winners have been awarded cash prizes, legal materials, and/or an internship with the ICTR. Teams who go to Arusha also get the opportunity to attend IHL lectures provided by ICRC and ICTR staff and to participate in discussions on topics related to the case studies upon which the competition is based.
This year, the Arusha competition was in its 10th year and had 11 teams. ICRC organises this event as part of its efforts to disseminate IHL and promote it within academic institutions in Africa. The two teams that were selected to represent the Southern Africa region in this year’s competition were Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg.
This win follows the other prestigious achievement of Rhodes students in the African Human Rights Competition held in Benin in October this year, where the Rhodes law faculty team of Ingrid Cloete and Fausto Di Palma also emerged the overall winners.
Ingrid and Fausto have now been invited to participate in the Commonwealth Lawyers Association Moot competition to be held in Hyderabad, India in February 2011.