Two North-West University (NWU) students – Africa Thaba from the Mahikeng Campus and Denise Geel from the Potchefstroom Campus – have been selected to represent the NWU at the 31st Christof Heyns African Human Rights Moot Court Competition. The competition will take place at British University in Cairo, Egypt from 25 to 30 July 2022.

The two final-year LLB students will be accompanied by NWU Faculty of Law representative Advocate Getsia Zazo, who has been helping the two with preparations.

The hypothetical case for this year’s competition will tackle issues related to internet intermediary liability, climate change and human trafficking, and will be held in English, French, Portuguese and Arabic.

Before Africa and Denise were selected to represent the NWU at international level, they had to go through preliminary interviews where they had to debate on a specific topic.

“Personally, this is a humbling experience, working with amazing academic minds such as Dr Soyapi, Adv Steenkamp and Adv Zazo – with their assistance we are bound for success,” says Africa.

“When you open yourself up to new opportunities great things happen. We aim to make the faculty and the NWU proud!”

He urges young people to make use of every single opportunity that comes their way. “Be open-minded to possibilities – you never know what life has in store for you.”

More about the Christof Heyns African Human Rights Moot Court Competition

The Christof Heyns African Human Rights Moot Court Competition is the largest gathering of students, academics, and judges around the theme of human rights in Africa.

This annual event brings together all law faculties in Africa, whose top students argue a hypothetical human rights case as if they were before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The competition continuously prepares new generations of lawyers to argue cases of alleged human rights violations before the African Court.

Denise Geel, Adv Getsia Zazo and Africa Thaba will be representing the NWU at the Christof Heyns African Human Rights Moot Court Competition.