The first Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition was held in 1992 but until recently, Africa was not represented in the competition.

In 2011 the international rounds were held in Cape Town, and the University of Pretoria sent an exhibition team to the competition. The high level of argumentation presented at the exhibition round convinced the organisers that an African Regional Round should be held in future. In 2012, the first African Regional Rounds were therefore held, and a team from the University of Pretoria achieved a close second place in the finals.

The second Africa Regional Round of the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition, was held at, and was organised by the Mount Kenya University, Nairobi, from 8 to 9 May 2013, with the support of the Africa Regional Coordinator, Ms Lulu Makapela of the CSIR. The event was supported by the Aerospace Industry Support Initiative, an initiative of the Department of Trade and Industry, which is hosted and managed by the CSIR.

The teams had to argue as agents of a state in front of international and space law experts (acting as judges of the International Court of Justice) on a complex problem related to state sovereignty; ownership and jurisdiction in outer space; liability over abandoned objects in space; mutual cooperation and assistance in space; astronauts in emergency situations; intellectual property rights; environmental protection; space tourism; liability for failed space missions and lunar exploration and development.

The team from the University of Pretoria did very well in the preliminary rounds, and ultimately faced the team from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, in the final round. The final round was held at the Supreme Court of Kenya, and the team from Pretoria was triumphant.

This means that the team will represent not only the University of Pretoria and South Africa, but also the African continent at the World Finals being held in Beijing, China, in September 2013. In China, they will compete against the champions from the Asia-Pacific, European and North American regions for the world championship title.

This is the latest addition to TuksLaw Moot Teams’ proud history of victories on national, regional and international levels in various moot court competitions on problems covering a range of legal systems and areas of the law.