Rwanda is changing the way it resolves disputes. Increasingly, disagreements that once went straight to court are being settled through arbitration, mediation, and negotiation. The economy is moving in step toward private investment, partnerships between government and private sectors, and commercial transactions that, when they pause, are resolved by arbitration as readily as by litigation. This is a significant and deliberate shift, and it carries real implications for the legal profession and for how the country prepares the lawyers who will serve it.

A National shift toward settlement

The direction is clear and already well advanced. Rwanda established the Kigali International Arbitration Centre in 2012, and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators opened a Rwanda Branch to train and certify arbitrators locally. At the community level, the Abunzi (Reconciliators) were elected to resolve many disputes before they ever reach a court, a reminder that amicable settlement is a long-standing Rwandan tradition, even traced back to our ancestors, and knows during post Genocide perpetrated against Tutsi in 1994, in what known as Gacaca millions of cases were settled through dialogues, therefore this justice system is not a borrowed one. The national development strategy, in turn, now treats Alternative Dispute Resolution as a central tool for easing court caseloads and delivering justice more quickly.

This reflects a wider, global rethinking of how justice is best delivered. In 1976, the Harvard scholar Frank Sander proposed, in his Article titled ‘’Varieties of Dispute Processing”,[1] what became known as the “multi-door courthouse”: a justice system that offers not a single door the trial but many, directing each dispute to the process best suited to it, whether negotiation, mediation or arbitration. Half a century on, that vision closely describes the path Rwanda has chosen. A justice system of many doors, however, calls for a profession equipped to work through all of them.

What the shift asks of the profession

With that shift comes a practical demand. Arbitration, mediation, and commercial dispute resolution are skill-intensive disciplines. They call for the ability to draft arbitral pleadings, to conduct a mediation, to argue questions of jurisdiction and applicable law, and to negotiate settlements that preserve valuable commercial relationships. These are capabilities built through practice and repetition refined in real proceedings and in realistic simulations.

The point is a long-settled one. In his 1910 Article “Law in Books and Law in Action,”[2] Roscoe Pound distinguished the law as it is written from the law as it actually operates a distinction every practitioner comes to know well. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. emphasized this:[3] “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” Mastery of the rules is essential; therefore, it is the experience that turns those rules into confident practice. As Jerome Frank observed in 1933, the law, like any craft, is completed through hands-on work alongside those already skilled in it.[4] A sound legal education provides the foundation; experience carries it into practice.

Moot Court Forum’s role

This is where the Moot Court Forum contribution comes in. As Rwanda opens more doors to justice, the Forum is committed to strengthening the practical skills of all law students in Rwanda through moot trainings and competitions before experienced practitioners and build genuine readiness for the ADR practice., working in partnership with the Ministry of Justice, Universities, KIAC, CIArb, Law Firms, NGOs, and development Partners.

This effort complements, and builds upon, the strong grounding that universities provide. The schools equip law students with knowledge; practical platforms, including Moot Court Forum, add the applied experience that every future legal professional requires. Together, we will prepare them to meet the demands of a changing justice ecosystem.

Rwanda’s move toward arbitration and amicable dispute resolution is more than a procedural adjustment. It is part of building strong, credible justice institutions and an economy in which investors and citizens alike can trust that disputes will be resolved fairly and efficiently. Preparing the legal professions who will eventually lead those institutions in the future is a shared undertaking to which the Moot Court Forum is proud to contribute.

[1] Frank E. A. Sander, “Varieties of Dispute Processing,” 70 F.R.D. 111 (1976).

[2] Roscoe Pound, “Law in Books and Law in Action,” 44 American Law Review 12 (1910)

[3] Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., The Common Law (1881)

[4] Jerome Frank, “Why Not a Clinical Lawyer-School?”, 81 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 907 (1933)