Ateneo de Manila University wins Children's Rights Moot Court 2019
The third edition of the bi-annual Children's Rights Moot Court has come to a spectacular end in the first week of April.
The performances of the participating teams representing four continents were truly outstanding. We have witnessed the next generation of children's rights advocates at work and are confident that children's rights are safe in their hands. We congratulate all participants on their exceptional performances.
The competition and the case
The Children’s Rights Moot Court was initiated by Leiden Law School in 2014 at the occasion of the twenty-fifth Anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, with the aim to offer students an opportunity to engage with each other in an international moot court concerning complex and highly topical children’s rights matters. It is organized, on a bi-annual basis by the Department of Child Law of Leiden University and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies.
This year's case concerned the plight of a young boy who was exploited in the mining industry in a country plagued by corruption and a weak judicial system. The case was prepared by Ms. Tulika Bansal, Senior Adviser Human Rights and Business at the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
The winners
A total of eight teams of across the globe prepared and pleaded the case. At 5 April 2019, the finals took place in the beautiful council room of the townhall, generously made available by the Municipality of Leiden. The team of Ateneo de Manila University (the Philippines) won the competition. This team was also praised with the award for Best Oral Pleading Applicant and Best Oral Pleading Respondent. One member of the team was individually praised with the Best Oralist Award.
The runner up that reached the finals was a team of Leiden University, consisting of students of the Dutch master’s programme Child Law (LL.M.). The award for the best memorial for the respondent side was handed out to the team of Benue State University (Nigeria). The best memorial for the applicant side was this year written by the second team of Leiden University participating in the competition. This team consisted of international students of the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights (LL.M.).
The contributors
The competition could not have taken place without the passionate and hard-working efforts of the judges of the bench who, as fierce children's rights advocates, questioned and constantly interrupted the pleading members of the teams on clarifications regarding highly complex issues ranging from eligibility criteria to responsibilities of businesses for children's rights violations. The bench of the final judges consisted of H.E. Judge Janet M. Nosworthy, judge at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Professor Ann Skelton, member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and former director of the Centre for Child Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa, and Ms. Tulika Bansal of the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
Other highly relevant contributors to this event were the international evaluators of the memorials and the coaches of the teams. We are furthermore grateful for the support of the Municipality of Leiden, publisher Springer Nature and Stanza Bookstore. Springer Nature kindly provided the winning team with copies of the book International Human Rights of Children. We would like to express to all our gratitude to for their generous support.
The Children’s Rights Moot Court 2019 has been organized in association with CREAN, the Children’s Rights European Academic Network.