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KNUST Law Faculty Wins Christof Heyns African Human Rights Moot Court Competition

Christof Heyns African Human Rights Moot Court

The Faculty of Law of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, has won the 31st Christof Heyns African Human Rights Moot Court Competition, 2022 which was held in Cairo, Egypt, at The British University in Egypt from 25th to 30th July 2022. The Christof Hyens African Human Rights Moot Court Competition has been hosted annually by the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria for the past 31 years. The Competition's goal is to help aspiring lawyers cultivate skills in advocacy and have a deeper understanding of the African Human Rights system.

The Competition featured 50 law faculties across Africa, with 38 participating in English, 6 in French, 4 in Arabic, and 2 in Portuguese. This year's hypothetical case addressed climate change and human trafficking as well as the accountability of internet intermediaries.

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At the end of the competition, the KNUST Faculty of Law emerged as the “Overall Winner of the Competition”, “Overall Best Team in the Preliminary Rounds”, “First Best Oralist”, “Second Best Oralist”, “Best Memorial (Written Submissions)” and Placed First in the Ranking of the 38 English-Speaking Teams.

The KNUST team was represented by Ms. Afia Owusua Banahene, Ms. Anita Enyonam Dei, and Ms. Majida Issah Abah. They were accompanied by the Dean of the Law Faculty, Dr. Ernest Owusu-Dapaa, Faculty Registrar, Mrs. Abigail Dzama Anderson, and their Coach, Mr. Ezekiel Osei.

The Christof Heyns African Human Rights Moot Court Competition is the largest gathering of students, academics, and judges of human rights in Africa. This annual event brings together all law faculties in Africa, whose top students argue a hypothetical human rights case as if they were before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Competition continuously prepares new generations of lawyers to argue cases of alleged human rights violations before the African Court.

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Since its creation in 1992, 150 universities from 50 African countries have taken part in this competition on the African Legal Education calendar. It has been a catalyst for the establishment of the leading programmes in the field of human rights teaching and research in Africa.

KNUST hosts the 2023 edition of the competition in Kumasi, Ghana.