Leiden Team Secures Second Place at International Migration and Refugee Law Moot Court Competition

This March, Leiden University sent its first team to compete in the International Migration and Refugee Moot Court. The team comprised four students from three different Leiden University master’s degree programmes: Michela Farrugia and Taylor Ramey from the Public International Law (PIL) master’s degree, Isabelle Oberschulte from the Advanced Children’s Rights master’s degree, and Elisha Gunaratnam from the European and International Human Rights Law Advanced LL.M. programme. After qualifying for the verbal competition rounds with one of the top-ranked memoranda from the written round, the team finished in second place after pleading on behalf of the applicant in the final round.

The team spent three months working on their written briefs, navigating a complex case pertaining to the applicant’s – the asylum seeker’s – decision of asylum denial and order to leave the country (and return to her country of origin, Afghanistan). In their submissions, the students based their arguments on gender-based persecution, attempting to establish that Afghani women constitute a particular social group under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Additional Protocol. Furthermore, the students introduced elements of international human rights law to their pleadings, putting forward submissions based on States’ non-refoulement obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).

In January 2024, the team was informed that it was one of the twelve teams selected to proceed to the verbal competition rounds and was invited to the University of Antwerp – this year’s host of the International Migration and Refugee Law Moot. When they arrived, the students competed against other universities before panels of highly-esteemed migration and refugee law judges from a broad, diverse range of jurisdictions. The team successfully pleaded in two preliminary rounds and semi-finals, eventually progressing to the finals, where they competed against the Singapore Management University team. Ultimately, the team won a very well-deserved second place overall.

The team would like to thank their coaches Talha Günay and Elena Kukovica, for their constant faith, support and mentorship over the past few months. They also wish to thank all others at Leiden Law School who volunteered their time in order to help the team prepare for the competition. Last but not least, the team would like to thank Leiden University’s Europa Institute and Wesseling Fund for facilitating their participation in this competition.