Moot Court

Children's Rights Moot Court Competition 2025

Date: Monday 7 April 2025 - Wednesday 16 April 2025
Location: Online

Children's Rights Moot Court 2025: call for teams

The biannual Children's Rights Moot Court (CRM) Competition is back, offering a unique opportunity for students around the world to engage with pressing issues in international children's rights law. This fully online competition spans four dynamic days, featuring preliminary rounds, quarter-finals, semi-finals and a grand final. Teams will be judged by experienced legal experts who will provide invaluable insights and feedback.

Why participate?
The CRM has a proud history of fostering passionate advocacy, with previous CRMs praised for being transformative experiences for students. Participants will have the opportunity to enhance their legal reasoning and advocacy skills, while networking with a diverse group of fellow students and professionals. More information is available here.

Open to all university teams, with two to four students per team, the competition is ideal for bachelor's and master's students in law. Even non-law students may be eligible if they possess sufficient legal knowledge to meet the challenge. Importantly, this competition is for emerging talent, so prior professional court experience is not required.

Why is this an exciting opportunity?
The CRM is not just any Moot Court experience – it’s a gateway to becoming a future defender of children's rights. By participating, you’ll contribute to finding solutions that directly impact the lives of children across the world. As the competition is being held entirely online, this is an inclusive Moot Court experience, allowing teams from all corners of the globe to participate without the restrictions associated with travel costs and visas.

Don't miss out on this chance to be part of something bigger! Form a team, register and prepare to make your mark in the CRM 2025. The world of children's rights needs fresh voices – and yours could be one of them!

Children's Rights Moot Court: structure
The participating student teams will be arguing a fictitious case that involves a dispute between a state and a child or group of children. The dispute is brought before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, under the Third Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure (OPIC). It is the teams' task to defend the two parties to the best of their abilities. Each team of students has to represent the Applicant (i.e. child) and Respondent (i.e. state) respectively, both in writing and through oral arguments.

Children's Rights Moot Court: case
The CRM involves a fictitious case that involves a dispute between a state and a child or group of children. For each edition of this Moot Court, Leiden Law School’s Department of Child Law assigns a duly qualified person to draft the case. The case for the 2025 edition is available here.

Rules of Procedure
The Rules of Procedure for the Children’s Rights Moot Court Competition provide detailed guidelines for team composition, registration, case publication, submission of memorials and presenting oral arguments. They outline the scoring structure, penalties for violations and the evaluation process used by an international panel of judges. The Rules of Procedure are available here.

Written memorial
Each team participating in the Moot Court competition will prepare an Applicant's memorial and a Respondent's memorial. Each memorial must not exceed 10,000 words.

Oral arguments
During the CRM, each team of university students will give their oral arguments four times: twice as the Applicant and twice as the Respondent. No team will face another team twice during the preliminary rounds. Each court session will comprise of ninety (90) minutes of oral pleadings. The Applicant and the Respondent have forty-five (45) minutes each for their oral arguments. Each team may reserve up to ten (10) minutes for rebuttal or surrebuttal. Per team, two Counsels will represent the Applicant and the Respondent.

Order
The order of the oral arguments during one Moot Court session is as follows:

Applicant: Counsel 1
Applicant: Counsel 2
Respondent: Counsel 1
Respondent: Counsel 2
Rebuttal (Applicant Counsel 1 or 2)
Surrebuttal (Respondent Counsel 1 or 2).

International Panel of Evaluation

The memorials for the CRM will be judged by the International Panel of Evaluation (IPE).

All participating teams are invited to nominate two (2) duly qualified persons to be members of the International Panel of Evaluation. It is at the discretion of the teams to decide who would qualify to act as a qualified person in this regard. It could be teaching staff at a university, professional law practitioners within an organisation, alumni or previous CRM participants, for example. Each member of the International Panel of Evaluation will evaluate a minimum of three anonymous memorials (excluding the memorials of the nominating team). The nominated persons may in no way engage with their nominating team or be involved in its preparations.

Timeline

Monday 18 November 2024: 2025 Moot Court case announced
Wednesday 13 November 2024: information session
Monday 13 January 2025: deadline for team registration
Monday 20 January 2025: nominations to be submitted for International Panel of Evaluation
Friday 31 January 2025: Applicant and Respondent memorials to be submitted by email to the Administrator
Monday 24 March 2025: teams receive Opponent’s Memorials by email
Monday 7 April to Wednesday 16 April 2025: Children's Rights Moot Court Competition

There is no registration fee to participate in this competition.

Organisation

For all questions relating to the CRM 2025, please contact the Moot Court Administrators by sending an email to crmootcourt2025@bakermckenzie.com

If you would like to volunteer as a judge for the IPE, please register here.

About us

The Department of Child Law and Health Law offers a comprehensive platform for education, research and training in these crucial fields. Our Advanced LL.M. in International Children's Rights provides in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in international children's rights law, making it the only programme globally to specialise in this area. We also host the Frontiers of Children's Rights Summer School, bringing together experts and students for an intensive exploration of current challenges and innovations in children's rights.

Through the Leiden Children's Rights Observatory, we also offer a unique platform for monitoring and discussing developments in children's rights, including decisions under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure (OPIC). The Observatory serves as a resource hub for students, practitioners and academics dedicated to advancing the right of children to access justice worldwide.

For 75 years, Baker McKenzie has helped clients navigate the complexities of an ever-changing world. From the civil rights movement to fall of the Berlin wall and the invention of the world wide web, we've witnessed fundamental shifts in business and society over the past eight decades. But as the original global law firm, we've been steadfast in solving our clients’ problems – wherever they're in the world – by providing a unique blend of local expertise and global context.

Our global reach and a strong network of leading local firms enable us to work across borders, issues and practices, to simplify legal complexity, foresee risks others may overlook, and identify commercial opportunities that others miss. This makes us the legal advisers of choice to some of the world's leading multinational corporations.

We are delighted to once again be involved in the Children’s Rights Moot Court Competition. ‘Children’s Rights are Human Rights’ is one pillar of our Global Pro Bono priorities. Through our pro bono work, Baker McKenzie engages teams of problem-solvers on the most compelling social justice challenges around the globe where our teams, both inside our Firm and from our corporate colleagues, can make an impact.