Three students from Kenya’s Strathmore University School of law emerged winners in the John H. Jackson Moot Court Competition on World Trade Organization (WTO) Law that was held in Geneva, Switzerland.
The students Mishael Wambua, Kandalla Maleehah, and Catherine Penda made history by beating Harvard Law School in the final of the competition.
The win makes them the first African team to win the competition that was formerly known as the European Law Students Association Moot Court Competition on WTO Law.
The Dean Strathmore Law School Luis Franceschi took to Twitter to celebrate the historic win.
@StrathmoreLaw met @Harvard in the final of the 17th John H. Jackson Moot Court on WTO Law today in Geneva. It was the 1st time an African team made it to the finals. @StrathmoreLaw won the Moot! 🙏🏽 Congrats great team! Kenya! @StrathU @wto @JAHillmanGULaw @IALSnet @dailynation pic.twitter.com/yRI4L1YxB0
— Luis G Franceschi (@lgfranceschi) June 8, 2019
The competition that attracted students from 90 law schools globally requires the participants to prepare and analyze a fictive case and present their arguments both for the Complainant and the Respondent in front of a panel which comprises of WTO and trade law experts.
Regional rounds are first conducted in Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Americas with 20 best teams proceeding to participate in the Final Oral Round, which is held in Geneva.
According to Business Today, this big win comes as the Senate launches investigations of increasing failure of students sitting the Bar examination at the Kenya School of Law (KSL).
In January 2018, a task force released a report that revealed the massive failure of law students seeking to be admitted as advocates of the High Court in a period of eight years, 2009-2016.
In the report, 7,530 students passed the bar examination while 8,549 failed to imply to a failure rate of 53 percent.
