By Ibrahim Godofa (A member of the University of Nairobi Team)

The 2019 CPR International Mediation Competition has definitely been one of the key opportunities that I have been lucky enough to participate in this year and arguably for the entirety of my law school period. I believe it was an incredible opportunity for my teammates as well.

My attention was first drawn to this competition on LinkedIn where the poster was shared by Mr. Olivier André from the CPR Institute. I immediately shared the information with like-minded colleagues at the university and a team was formed, whereupon we applied for participation as well as a partial scholarship that had just been instituted to aid disadvantaged teams. Upon assessment, we were selected alongside 17 other teams from across the globe as the only team from the African continent. Additionally, we were granted the partial scholarship to participate!

“The role all of these takeaways will play in enhancing the position of mediation in Kenya, especially among our fellow students, cannot be underestimated.”

The competition period that took place between the 4^th and 6^th of April in São Paulo, Brazil was probably the most intensive and beneficial learning opportunity throughout the process. Coming from a jurisdiction where mediation is still a progress in motion, the first evening of the training session, featuring short lectures about the various emerging aspects of mediation, was an incredible way to start a learning curve that would last for the following two days. It was quite an eye-opening kick-off and equally interesting to be introduced to emerging technologies as well as business aspects, such as agricultural ones, in the practice of mediation. While this training session served as an effective way to expand the participants’ views on the evolving practice of mediation, we also found it to be a helpful approach to preparing for the actual competition, whose themes revolved around these emerging aspects.

The Nairobi team, receiving their award for best teamwork. The author, Ibrahim Godofa, is pictured on the right, along with his teammates Edgar Usagi Alema (left) and Sumaiyah Abdi Omar (center).

The first day of the competition provided many different kinds of lessons, as my team and I got the chance to go up against excellent teams from world class universities all around the world. My team had the rare chance to go up against teams from three different continents: South America, Asia and North America on this first day. It was quite an awesome experience trying out our preparation against teams that had different approaches and internal qualification processes to get to this stage of the competition, and some of which even had coaches, unlike my team. It was also an interesting experience to compete in the style in which the competition was set up—which was new to me, and (as I learned from speaking to them) to several of the other participants as well.

Additionally, as a team we had always known mediation to be a conflict resolution process that is not bent towards a win-lose outcome. While retaining the important values of a mediation, this competition allowed us to simultaneously act upon the rush of competitiveness coming from all the teams while maintaining a respectful and professional sportsmanship, which was one of the highlights of this phase of the competition observable from all the teams present.

The first day of the competition culminated quite memorably for us, with an announcement that our negotiating team was through to the quarter finals the following day. Being part of our negotiating team, this presented serious excitement for me and also meant continued work within the limited time we had to prepare for the quarter finals round. The quality of the competition in this round was even a notch higher than the previous day’s, and so were the stakes. However, my team would learn later in the day that our impressive run would end at this round, albeit against a worthy opponent, the Harvard Law School team.

The team from the University of Nairobi, School of Law, taking a well-deserved break

Outside the competition rooms, there was an extended opportunity to interact and network with current and future voices in global mediation. This ranged from top-of-their-class students from the various participating universities as well as other professionals who were present in different capacities as judges, coaches and other volunteers. Interacting with these individuals and exchanging contacts provided an invaluable door to long-lasting partnerships and collaborations that are particularly priceless coming from a jurisdiction such as ours, where borrowing from global best practices brings a special kind of difference in an under-developed field such as mediation.

At the end of the competition, my team was recognized with the “Best Teamwork” Award, upon the completion and compilation of feedback from the excellent judging panels that we came across in the various rounds. This feedback from the judges, which continued to come to our attention even after the competition was long finished, has been a very important part of the competition’s learning process and my team is incredibly proud to have emerged with an award testament to the positive and constructive feedback that the judges had on our performance.

One of the main attractions of this competition to our team lay in the impact that the experience would have on mediation back in our circles at home, both in general and at our school in particular. The lessons taken home by our team from this experience are numerous. Some of the key takeaways from the wholesome experience of the competition include:

• Best practices from other universities as far as student activities centered around mediation is concerned in their schools, especially for the universities from the United States
• Valuable feedback from the judging panel, some of which contain long-term lessons for our future practices
• And, most importantly, a model mediation practice procedure that can be employed to sharpen the skills of eager students back at our school through student-led trainings

It is important to also note that our team’s participation in this edition of the competition was the first of its kind at our school as far as any international Alternative Dispute Resolution competitions are concerned. Our participation has therefore paved way for other students to look for and take up similar opportunities, and to benefit from the connections that our team acquired internationally which can be leveraged to create a ripple of opportunities to others who will come after us. The role all of these takeaways will play in enhancing the position of mediation in Kenya, especially among our fellow students, cannot be underestimated. With all signs indicating the rise of mediation practice around the world, we are certainly committed to advancing this important dispute resolution resource within our immediate circle of friends and fellow students, starting from our school. And a big thank you goes to the CPR Institute for the invaluable role that it continues to play in driving a global mediation culture.

Our team’s appreciations go to Olivier André, the amazing Chris Silva and Franco Gevaerd from the CPR Institute, all of whom played a key role in making our experience of this competition, alongside their other colleagues, so memorable.

And oh! Brazil was an awesome place and the Paulistas were very friendly and welcoming residents of a great city! We had a wonderful time.