Makerere Wins Jessup Moot Court Competitions

The weekend for the law school was quite steamy as the yearly Phillip C. Jessup Moot National Moot rounds occurred from the 15^th to the 16^th of February. It is one of the various moot activities that were organized by International Law Students Association (ILSA) spearheaded by Raymond Muhekyi.

Usually, many universities from around the world participate in this competition and the winning university from each of these representative countries flies to Washington DC to compete in the international round. Farou Bay College from Sierra Leone and College of Juba from South Sudan were the winning universities from their home countries and blessed us with their attendance both to participate and learn.

The first day had an international law fellowship which served as a build up for the second day in which the main competitions occurred. Makerere University, Uganda Christian University and Kampala International University all competed with their respective law schools and of course the Makerere University Law School emerged winner to this. Dr. Sylvia Busingye, former lecturer at LDC served as the head for a panel of judges that consisted of people from all the competing universities and one individual from UCU to be free completely from bias.

The competition is a steamy real world representation of the court room and the teams tasked with an 8-16 page question that requires teams to represent an oral and written representation. The written presentation accounts for 60% and the oral accounts for 40%. The oral presentation is an actual base of the court room where judges question and the team present both the applicants and respondents side.

The question was about the case concerning Kayleff Yak and it was covering four broad aspects. The cultural and religious rites of indigenous people, international environmental law and the protection of species at the risk of extinction, responsibility of states of non state actors particularly multinational corporations and intellectual property law. The students were required to consider all these four broad aspects in mind while answering the question. A big ups goes to the Makerere team that consisted of Magina Isabella, Twiine Rehemah, Aaron Paul Kaleeba, Kaddu Jeffrey Suuubi and Taremwa Kansiime Mukama who emerged best oralist and contributed to the great institution’s big win.