Senegal: moot court competition on international humanitarian law
16-12-2008 News Release 08/233
Dakar (ICRC) – Gaston Berger University in Saint Louis, in partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), is organizing a moot court competition on international humanitarian law from 16 to 20 December.
The competition opened today in the presence of the local deputy governor, the rector of the university, the dean of the university's law and political sciences division, the regional chairman of the Senegalese Red Cross Society, and the deputy head of the ICRC regional delegation in Dakar.
" The ICRC stands ready to make its expertise available to support the inclusion of international humanitarian law in the university curriculum, " said Gianni Volpin, the deputy head of the ICRC regional delegation.
Among the 20-odd participants in the competition are law students from Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar and from Gaston Berger University, students from the Centre d'études des sciences et techniques de l'information (CESTI) in Dakar and from the Institut supérieur de management in Ziguinchor, and law students articling for the Dakar bar.
Courses in international humanitarian law are currently offered at Cheikh Anta Diop University and at CESTI.
International humanitarian law, an important part of public international law, aims to limit the suffering of civilian victims of armed conflict and other violence by protecting those not, or no longer, taking part in hostilities, and by restricting the methods and means of warfare.
The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, which Senegal ratified in 1963 and 1985 respectively, are the main instruments of international humanitarian law.
For further information, please contact:Wolde-Gabriel Saugeron, ICRC Dakar, tel: +221 77 529 71 45