Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition for Undergraduate and Masters Law Students Worldwide

Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition for Undergraduate and Masters Law Students Worldwide

The Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition is organised by the Centre for Human Rights based at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa, in partnership with the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, American University Washington College of Law, and the United Nations Human Rights Council Branch (HRCB) at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The World Moot is open to undergraduate and masters students from all universities in the world. Teams of two students (gender diversity is encouraged) from every university in the world are invited to submit heads of argument for a hypothetical human rights case.

The 50 teams with the highest memorial grades are invited to participate in the preliminary oral rounds and present their arguments to human rights experts and judges of international tribunals at the UN headquarters in Geneva.

The Moot Court Competition is the largest gathering of students, academics and judges around the theme of human rights in the world.

Requirements

The Competition is open to students around the world. A team of two students from each university – preferably one woman and one man (gender diversity is encouraged) – is invited to participate in the competition.

The Competition involves a written phase after which teams are selected for the oral phase.

Teams argue a hypothetical case on issues of international human rights law, as if they were before a world Human Rights Court, on the basis of the International Bill of Human Rights and other applicable (such as regional) human rights instruments.

Selection Criteria

The best 10 teams from each UN region are then invited to participate in the online preliminary rounds. Teams then have to argue the two sides of the hypothetical case, representing, alternatively, both the Applicant and the Respondent before a ‘bench’ of human rights experts.

The 16 best teams proceed to the in person Octofinal rounds, which is presided over by international human rights experts. The Competition is presented in English, French and in Spanish.

As part of the Competition, an Annual Nelson Mandela Human Rights Lecture is held. In 2023 the Fourth Annual Nelson Mandela Human Rights Lecture will held on 18 July.

Organised by

Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria

Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, American University, Washington College of Law

The Commonwealth Secretariat, and

United Nations Human Rights Council Branch (HRCB) at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Registration

Registration is done in two phases:

Phase 1: Faculty Registration

In this phase, individuals must register the institutional information of their faculty, along with the details of the person responsible for the team. Such individual can be the faculty representative, in the event a team does not have a faculty representative such details can be of one of the team members.

Phase 2: Individual registration

In this phase, each of the two oralists, including the faculty representative (if applicable) must register so as to record their details. Individual registration is only for the 50 selected teams.

How to Apply

For more information and job application details, see; Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition for Undergraduate and Masters Law Students Worldwide