By Isaac Akugizibwe

KIU, Main Campus-KIU Law students competing in this year's International Human Rights Law (IHL)moot competition have passed the first stage of the competition which involved writing memorials. Team KIU is among the final four Universities that will participate in the oral version of the competition after which the overall winners will be announced.

The next stage of this highly competitive moot will take place on 29th to 30th August 2023, and according to organizers, the venue will be communicated in due course.

The IHL moot competition, organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is organized annually at national, continental and global levels and KIU has always impressed throughout.

Unlike in the past, the universities competing in this year's competition are being concealed with the organisers talking to the heads of each team separately. KIU'S moot Coordinator is Manzi Mark, a junior lecturer in the school of law and a former champion in this competition.

"Thank you and your students for participating in the writing of the memorials. This year we had seven Universities send in their memorials and we needed only 4 to participate in the orals. Congratulation KIU, you made it to the next stage, "read a statement sent to Manzi by Janet Patricia Bako, the head of communications at the International Committee of the Redcross

"Generally, all the submissions were solid and clearly reflect a lot of research by the participating students," it added.

It also added that “as the competition will be continuing to oral rounds, in the interest of fairness, no individual feedback will be provided to any teams at this stage."

Bako also indicated in the statement that ICRC will provide accommodation to the students and the coaches on a full-board basis. She also added that "each University is expected to have one coach whom we shall facilitate in terms of accommodation and meals."

Team KIU according to Jonathan Areeba, the president of the KIU Law Society is comprised of three contestants among whom is James Mukisa, Stellah Kimono, and Benjamin Oteng. President Jonathan has been greatly representing the University in this competition including Winning the best Orator award in the Regional championship in 2021.

Before that, he had helped KIU to emerge winners at the National level in the same year beating Universities like IUIU, UCU, and Makerere University respectively. Now he's helping colleagues to take on the mantle and surely, they are already taking the right direction.

Areeba is not doing the training job alone, two other gallant products of KIU have been and are still mentoring this team. These are Hemed Swalleh Wengo and former Guild president, Comfort Ndagire Vanessa, all former mooters in this competition.

During these competitions, law students are split into State Persecutors and Defense Lawyers and given a case to argue on an International scale and the winners go to the next level. The winners will represent Uganda at the regional level where they choose Africa’s representatives for the international level.