Across East Africa and the Horn of Africa, forced displacement, regional mobility, climate-related movement, conflict, and labour market exclusion continue to shape the lives of refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, undocumented migrants, and host communities. These dynamics are no longer purely humanitarian questions. They are also legal, economic, governance, and regional integration questions. The Bonaventure Rutinwa Regional Forced Migration and Labour Mobility Moot Court Competition, taking place from the 9 to the 11 of December, 2026, is a regional academic and policy platform dedicated to advancing legal scholarship, practical advocacy, and polic innovation in refugee protection, migration governance, labour mobility, and economic inclusion.
Components of the Moot
Participating teams prepare scholarly research papers on contemporary issues in refugee law, migration governance, and labour mobility. These papers are assessed by experts and defended before a panel.
Teams participate in written memorial submissions and oral advocacy rounds based on a fictional but realistic case involving refugee protection, access to work, state obligations, regional mobility frameworks, and economic inclusion.
The Moot incorporates capacity-building sessions, expert dialogues, mentorship, and publication opportunities, ensuring that the competition produces lasting learning outcomes beyond the event itself.
WHY PROFESSOR BONAVENTURE RUTINWA?
The competition is named in honour of Professor Bonaventure Sylvand Ishengoma Rutinwa, one of Africa’s leading scholars in international refugee law, forced migration, labour law and human rights. Through his scholarship, policy work and institutional leadership, Professor Rutinwa has made significant contributions to the study and advancement of refugee and forced migration issues in Africa.
He has served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Centre for the Study of Forced Migration at the University of Dar es Salaam, as well as founding Chair of the East African Network for the Study of Forced Migration. Naming the competition after him recognises his enduring intellectual contribution and anchors the Moot within Africa’s strong tradition of refugee law scholarship and regional policy engagement.
Overal Goal
The overall goal of the Moot is to strengthen regional legal capacity, scholarly engagement, and policy dialogue on forced migration, labour mobility, refugee protection, and economic inclusion in East Africa and the Horn of Africa.
Specific Objectives
- Strengthen legal capacity among university students and lecturers on refugee law, human rights law, migration governance, labour mobility, and regional legal frameworks.
- Promote regional dialogue on durable solutions, economic inclusion, access to work, and mobility pathways for refugees and displaced populations.
- Encourage innovative legal reasoning on emerging issues such as cross-border labour rights, statelessness, trafficking, mixed migration, climate-induced displacement, administrative justice, and refugee self-reliance.
- Build a regional community of practice linking students, academics, refugee-led organisations, civil society actors, lawyers, policymakers, and regional experts.
- Generate high-quality knowledge products, including memorials, research papers, legal briefs, and publishable student scholarship on forced migration and labour mobility.
- Support long-term institutionalisation of the Moot as a flagship regional academic platform contributing to refugee protection, economic inclusion, and regional policy reform.
Competition Design
Each team will prepare a scholarly paper on a contemporary issue related to refugee law, forced migration, labour mobility, or economic inclusion. The papers will be assessed on originality, methodology, legal analysis, policy relevance, structure, and quality of argumentation.
6 Teams will then defend their papers before an expert panel. This will require them to justify their thesis, methodology, legal framework, and policy recommendations. The strongest papers may be selected for publication in a legal journal, edited volume, working paper series, or online academic repository.
Each team will submit written memorials based on a hypothetical legal problem. The memorials will be assessed by experts on legal reasoning, use of authorities, clarity, structure, factual application, persuasiveness, and engagement with regional and international legal frameworks.
The Moot will simulate proceedings before an international or regional tribunal. Teams will argue on behalf of applicants, respondent states, and, where appropriate, amicus curiae positions. The oral rounds will test students’ knowledge of refugee law, human rights law, labour mobility, economic inclusion, state responsibility, administrative justice, and regional legal obligations.
The Moot will include expert lectures, workshops, mentorship sessions, and peer learning caucuses. These sessions will expose participants to practitioners, judges, academics, refugee-led organisations, regional institutions, and policy actors working on forced migration and labour mobility.
Expected Impact
Students will gain advanced skills in legal research, writing, advocacy, and analysis. They will develop practical experience in litigation strategy, legal interpretation, oral advocacy, and policy argumentation. Lecturers and coaches will also benefit from exposure to current regional and international debates on forced migration and labour mobility.
The competition will generate legal arguments, research papers, and policy reflections that can contribute to broader regional debates on refugee protection, access to work, mobility, and economic inclusion. Over time, the Moot can become a source of emerging legal thought and comparative analysis for practitioners, policymakers, and regional institutions.
- For donors and partners, the Moot offers a high-impact, visible, and scalable intervention. It combines youth capacity-building, legal empowerment, regional cooperation, policy engagement, research generation, and institutional development. It also provides a practical platform for donors to support protection-sensitive mobility, refugee self-reliance, economic inclusion, and regional legal harmonisation.
Geographic Scope and Proposed Participation
The 2026 Moot will be designed as a regional competition with participation from selected countries in East Africa, the Horn of Africa, and other strategically relevant African jurisdictions.
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