Great Zimbabwe University, supported by the RWI Harare Office won the All Africa Iinternational Humanitarian Law moot court competition in Arusha, Tanzania. The team won the national round held at Harare High Court earlier in September. The GZU team went on to represent Zimbabwe at the All Africa International Humanitarian Law moot court competition in Arusha, Tanzania from 19-24 November 2023.
The Competition takes place annually and is organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Different teams from Anglo-phone countries in Africa that would have succeeded in their national round competitions convene in Arusha for the competition. The Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Harare Office supported the participation of the team from Great Zimbabwe University at the Regional Competition. Among the nine participating teams were Tanzania, Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
The competition kicked off on 19 November with an opening ceremony where all teams were making cultural presentations of their choice from their respective cultural backgrounds. Throughout the week, the students were taught different facets of International Humanitarian Law and the law of conflict by experts from the ICRC and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT). On each day, lectures were conducted in the morning, and the role-play competitions in the afternoon. The four teams that emerged with top scores after a compilation of the entire week’s scores proceeded to the semi-finals and the two remaining subsequently to the finals. The final competition was held at the IRMCT courtroom, where Great Zimbabwe University competed with Kenyatta University from Kenya for the Regional Trophy, with Great Zimbabwe University emerging as the overall winner of the competition. The President of the International Residual Mechanism of Criminal Tribunals, President Gatti Santana presided over the final round, together with the Prosecutor at the court and ICRC personnel.
The Regional IHL Moot Court Competition falls under the Zimbabwe Human Rights Capacity Development Programme 2019-2023, with funding from the Embassy of Sweden in Zimbabwe.
