Analysis

For the second time, the Law Faculty of the Cave Hill Campus, University of the West Indies, fielded a team of three students – Sarah Baksh, Kara John, and Matthew Chin Barnes – to participate in the All American Regional Round of the 2020 John  H.  Jackson  Moot  Court  Competition  (JHJMCC), a moot court based on the law of the World Trade Organization. Mr Westmin James (Lecturer, Law Faculty, Cave Hill) coached the team, and Dr. Jan Yves Remy (Deputy Director of the SRC at the Cave Hill Campus) provided support. Due to COVID-19, the combined North and Latin American Regional Rounds which had been scheduled to take place at the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico, had to be conducted virtually, the first time in the Competition’s history.

Students who study law at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) participate in various moot court competitions involving a wide array of legal fields. One example is the John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition. NUL has taken part in this competition on four occasions- twice making it into the international final round. There are several challenges to teaching International Economic Law (IEL) at NUL (these have been traversed in an earlier piece). However, participation in moot court competitions has proved to be a novel way of overcoming some of these challenges.

“Africa’s riches” include its law students, and Africa has the means to unleash that resource for its own benefit and the world’s. To close the circle and exhort the law students and young lawyers of Africa: seize the opportunities, face the challenges, and remember, Nelson Mandela’s words; I never lose. I either win or learn.

In sum, I would say that as a team our moot experience has been shaped by perseverance, thirst, research, practice, and teamwork. Any African students who learn from our lessons can become phenomenal

Supporting moot court competition through funding initiatives is one way to offer support. Another way is to offer knowledge and expertise on substantive law as well as presentation skills.

This symposium presents two interesting memoirs of African students who have participated in these moots and have chosen paths of graduate studies that are related to international economic law and development studies. Mr Mishael Wambua a student at Strathmore University Law and last year winner and best oralist at the John H. Jackson writes about his experience and advice to future mooters. Ms Purity Maritim a former participant of the same moot and now a masters student at the Graduate Institute in Geneva also writes about her experiences and what she learnt from the moot. The other two contributions are from Mr Christian Campbell the Assistant Director FDI moot and Tsotang Tsietsi lecturer and moot coach from the National University of Lesotho. These two contributions present two interesting perspectives on the many directions that moot court competitions can take for Africa in the near future.

Given the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the present need for online educational materials and resources, the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law (AVL) is happy to draw our attention to their free online educational resources. 

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the American Journal of International Law (AJIL) is issuing a worldwide call for papers for an Agora symposium to be published in the October 2020 issue of the Journal.  The topic – “The International Legal Order and the Global Pandemic” – recognizes that the present crisis raises foundational questions for the international legal order that extend beyond the immediate challenges to public health and economic stability.

In this brief post, I want to make sense of Prabhash Ranjan’s brief critique of TWAIL perspectives on international investment law. My main aim is not to mount a defense of TWAIL project(s) on investment law because that might be done more eloquently by others. Instead, I want to make some brief comments about the political valence of, and the assumptions behind, the reservations that Professor Ranjan articulated in this post, and which also appear in his recent book on India and Bilateral Investment Treaties.

It is trite to mention that the benefits and costs from trade expansion may never be evenly distributed across ACs. However, the estimated revenue loss should not be considered as an absolute loss for ACs as the long-term benefits, facilitated by adjustment support remain significant. It will allow comparative advantage to thrive, thereby granting customers and firms access to cheaper products/raw materials in the continent.