Baylor Students Argue Important Human Rights Cases in Mock Trial Competition
Baylor's Human Rights Moot Court team includes: (Front L to R) Kondwani Masamba and Avery Millington; (Back L to R) Ayaan Ansari, Roger Spletzer and Kenton Shieh. (Photo: Brent Burgess)
On March 27-28, 2026, undergraduate students from Baylor University took part in the Eugene Scassa Mock Organization of American States (ESMOAS) Program’s Eleventh Inter-American Court of Human Rights Moot Court (IACHR) Competition, held at Concordia University in Austin, Texas. A five-judge panel heard arguments in preliminary and tournament rounds presented by teams from regional universities.
Teams of two contestants argued alternately as State and Petitioner in a hypothetical case involving issues of citizenship, asylum, transnational crime, children’s rights, immigration, national sovereignty, and border security. The teams cited articles of the American Convention on Human Rights, the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, as well as judgments from other international and national courts, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Court’s prior decisions in their arguments.
Baylor’s team consisted of Avery Millington (senior, medical humanities, Fort Worth, Texas), Kondwani Masamba (junior, international studies, Pasadena, Texas), Kenton Shieh ( senior, history, San Jose, California), Ayaan Ansari (sophomore, political science, Tyler, Texas) and Roger Spletzer (senior, international studies, Chevy Chase, Maryland). Ansari won the award for Distinguished Orator.
The team is advised by Dr. Mark McGraw, lecturer in Spanish in the Department of Modern Language and Cultures in the College of Arts & Sciences, and was supported by instruction and advice in legal argumentation and research by Professors Brian Serr and Chris Galeczka of the Baylor School of Law.
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The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University’s largest academic division, consisting of 25 academic departments in the sciences, humanities, fine arts and social sciences, as well as 11 academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. The College’s undergraduate Unified Core Curriculum, which routinely receives top grades in national assessments, emphasizes a liberal education characterized by critical thinking, communication, civic engagement and Christian commitment. Arts & Sciences faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines. Visit the College of Arts & Sciences website.