After tackling childhood and migration in 2022-2023, then harassment in 2023-2024, this year the Faculty devoted its Fil Rouge to a fundamental topic: inclusion. With the slogan "Let's live inclusion!", the 2024-2025 edition raised everyone's awareness of the importance of a society where everyone finds their place, whatever their origin, gender, social class, age, physical or mental abilities, sexual orientation...

Look back at some of the highlights of this second quadrimester.

On February 19, 2025, the final of the eloquence tournament took place, featuring powerful messages and inspiring performances. The tournament saw eight brilliant finalists compete, starting with Stephen Hawking's quote, "Disability cannot be a handicap".

• First prize and the audience prize were won by Aude Cavillot (student in BLOC 1)
• Second prize was won by Soraya El Kajjal (student in BLOC 3)
• Third prize was won by Natéo Carnot (student in BLOC 1)

On February 27, Benjamin Gisaro, a Belgian performer of Congolese origin, accompanied by Marie Dusingize, a doctoral student in socio-anthropology and specialist in Afro-descendant identities at ULiège, met with students in the Logic and Argumentation course taught by Thibault de Meyer. After enlightening them on the mechanisms of trivialized racism, anchoring the presentation with topical elements, and inviting them to write about their experiences, two of the actors from her show "Évidemment, c'est fâcheux" presented extracts from it, to then debate with the audience racist discourses and their deconstruction.

From March 10 to 14, the Faculty hosted an academic event of international stature: the European Moot Court Competition. Supervised by Jean-Marc Van Gyseghem, lecturer at UNamur and deputy director of the Centre de recherches Information, Droit et Société (CRIDS), this initiative was organized as part of the Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) and brought together five European universities: the Catholic University of Lyon, Poitiers, Aristotle of Thessalonica (Athens) and ELTE Eötvös (Budapest), in addition to UNamur.

The aim of such a project was to immerse students in an immersive and formative experience, through a French-language pleading competition, articulated around human rights and preceded by an online preparatory course lasting around 25 hours.

In close collaboration with the City of Namur, the Faculty organized a competition for video creations to raise awareness of inclusion and non-discrimination on campus, in town and everywhere... Open to two categories of artistic creations, from students or staff members, it highlighted the talents of four winners.

In the student category:

• First prize: The digital divide, by Maya Bernard, Jade Botton and Lou de Potter
• Second prize: Blinded by digital advances, by Léna Lampasona, Chloé Petron, Achille Dewez and Romain Gilsoul
• Third prize and audience award: BREF, le numérique c'est génial... ou pas, by Louise Defrang and Violette Davreux

In the staff member category:

• Sarah Larielle, assistant and PhD student

The thread that will weave its way through the Faculty of Law in 2025-2026 will be dedicated to the theme of "Reenchanting the Earth!". Many more motivating activities in prospect!

Marilyn : Diplomacy is a way for state representatives, like ambassadors, to exchange and defend their country's interests on the international stage. The idea is always to seek compromise and cooperation between states. Each country has its own history, its own values, its own politics, but the aim is to put our differences aside to find common solutions.

Delphine: I've always been interested in international relations. It's a field I'm passionate about and I really wanted to do something concrete with it. Participating in this type of experience is an incredible opportunity.

Marilyn : What I love about my studies is all the theoretical part of law, but I was missing a more practical aspect. Diplomacy precisely allows me to develop speaking, debating and negotiating skills: skills that will be essential for me later on, particularly when working in law.

Marilyn : Listening is really essential. You have to be able to understand the reasoning of others, especially in a context where everyone comes from a different country, with their own way of approaching problems. The aim is to arrive at a solution that can benefit everyone, and to do that, you have to know how to listen, follow the arguments of others and build a common response.

Delphine: You also need to be able to put yourself in the other person's shoes, to understand their point of view. And then, self-confidence is important, especially when you're speaking or debating. You also need to know how to adapt, in particular by listening to what others have to say, so you can adjust your own speech accordingly.

Marylin: During these conferences, each party arrives with its own issues. The challenge is to succeed in integrating all these perspectives into a common solution, and that really comes down to listening and adaptability.

Marilyn : I learn a lot from her, especially in speaking and negotiating, which are key skills for practicing as a judge or lawyer. Knowing how to defend someone requires more than theory. I'm also doing further training in political science and have a course in the history of international relations. The lectures allow me to apply what I'm learning, but also to better understand how things work in practice.

Delphine: It also helps us make the connection with certain courses, like European or international law. It's a good way to start familiarizing ourselves with these subjects, while approaching them in a more concrete way.

Delphine: This year, the competition was held in Manila, in the Philippines, for a week. We received the theme a few weeks before the competition, which enabled us to prepare well, to understand the position of the country we were representing, so that we could best defend our point of view during the debates. Personally, I represented Egypt in the Social, Cultural and Humanitarian Committee (SOCHUM). The topic was access to universal healthcare.

Marilyn: For my part, I represented Colombia, in the social development committee. The theme was global poverty reduction. It's quite a broad topic, with a multidimensional approach, both cultural, social and economic, which made the research and negotiation work particularly interesting.

Marilyn: What I really like is all the personal development it's given me. I've gained a huge amount of self-confidence, I've got to know my strengths and weaknesses better. It's also really motivating to see how far you've come. I think that, in a few years' time, that's what I'll remember most of all: how much this experience has made me grow.

Delphine: MSB pushes us as much academically as personally. You develop as a person, gain confidence and become more efficient. All this with a group of friends who are living the same adventure as we are. You also get to meet people from all over the world, which really opens up your mind.

Marilyn: This year was also MSB's 20th anniversary. I think our real strength is diversity. Within MSB, there are students from all over Belgium, as much from Wallonia as from Flanders and from a wide variety of backgrounds: law, engineering, medicine, political science... And then above all, there's an incredible friendship between us.

Delphine: We're all highly motivated and we're living this adventure to the full, together. During the conference, we rely heavily on our ability to listen and adapt. We're not here to impose our ideas, but to build collective solutions with the other delegations.

The organization of the JEDDT is an institutional project that aims to train 3rd-year bachelor students at the University of Namur in the multiple challenges of the transition to sustainable development, in its social, environmental, economic and democratic dimensions. With the JEDDT, students are led to think in order to act.

Throughout the year, students were invited to take part in a series of activities, conferences and workshops organized on campus to fuel their reflection, and to keep a logbook to raise awareness of their learning. And on March 17, the closing event of the JEDDT gave them the opportunity to present to the university community, and the wider public, the fruit of the reflection carried out in teams. Through creative formats, they challenged themselves in front of a jury made up of experts and representatives of civil society.

The closing day jury was made up of: Laurent Schumacher, Vice-Rector for Sustainable Development and Education, Fabienne Bister, entrepreneur, UNamur alumni and President of the 6-24 Fund managed by the King Baudouin Foundation, Magalie Meyer, Project Manager at TRAKK, Anne-Catherine Vieujean, Director of the Pôle Académique Namurois, François Nélis, Director of UNamur's Communication Administration and Jean-Marie Balland, Professor at UNamur's Department of Economics.

This year, UNamur's Faculty of Law coordinated its first BIP, in partnership with four European universities: the Catholic University of Lyon, Poitiers, Aristotle of Thessaloniki (Athens) and ELTE Eötvös (Budapest). The aim of such a project was to immerse students in an immersive and formative experience, through a European French-language pleading competition, articulated around human rights and preceded by an online preparatory course lasting around 25 hours.

The face-to-face part of the mobility program took place in Namur. For a week, the city of Namur became the scene of an intense academic and cultural exchange. Between oratory competitions and discovery of Namur's heritage, students were able to combine academic work with international immersion. The week's program included discovering Namur and the Walloon Parliament, training and exchange sessions, and the international moot competition.

The highlight of the event was the grand final of the competition on Thursday March 13. Part of the Faculty of Law's Fil Rouge "Vivons l'inclusion!", an initiative designed to encourage reflection and dialogue on issues of inclusion and diversity in the world of law and beyond, the pleading focused on the theme of human rights.

The students competed before an exceptional jury: Françoise Tulkens, Honorary Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights, Pierre Nihoul, President of the Constitutional Court and Alexis Deswaef, Vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights. After some intense, well-argued verbal jousting, Florence ROSSI, a 3rd-year law student at the University of Namur, won the prize for best oral argument, while two students from the University of Poitiers won the prize for best team in this prestigious competition. Their eloquence, legal rigor and ability to convince a high-level jury made all the difference in the face of competition from all over Europe.

This first BIP in law organized at UNamur perfectly illustrates the pedagogical approach advocated by the Faculty of Law: to train jurists capable of evolving in an international environment, while taking into account major societal issues. Professors, students and jury were very enthusiastic at the end of the competition, highlighting the richness of such an initiative, both for professional careers and personal enrichment.

With projects like this BIP, UNamur continues to innovate and offer students training rooted in the reality of the professional world and current societal challenges. A great way to prepare tomorrow's lawyers for an international career.