Our Experience 2026
2026: Upcoming Participation
From February 6 to February 13, 2026, the Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section, of the University of Ottawa, will participate in the French-speaking edition of the Jean-Pictet Competition, to be held in Dilijan, Armenia. The three participants are active members of the Observatory on Human Rights at the UN. This upcoming participation reflects the Observatory’s continued commitment to experiential learning in international humanitarian law and to the long-term development of ethically grounded and globally engaged jurists.
The 2026 team is composed of students in the Bachelor of Civil Law program; Adèle Gagnon Pelletier — former Leader of the 2024-2025 cohort and now Advisor, Leadership Program, and Mateo Porras Gil — current Leader, as well as Clara Laplante Bédard, doctoral candidate in law, former Leader of the 2024-2025 cohort and now Advisor, Children's Rights and Knowledge Dissemination.
The team is being prepared under the academic supervision of Professor Pascale Fournier, Head of the Observatory, and benefits from the support of a strong mentorship network and invaluable collaboration composed of former participants, collaborators, and senior advisors, including Clara Byk Giroux, Simona Lombardo, Christian Mpabwa, and Noël Kabeya as well as from the attentive guidance of several mentors and Observatory collaborators. The preparation process is supported by external judges, diplomats and practitioners from the Court of Appeal, the Canadian Red Cross, the government of Canada, the United Nations, the legal profession, as well as the Pilots and Collaborators of the Observatory. Their expertise, rigour, and commitment greatly enhanced the educational and professional value of the teams’ preparation.
In the weeks leading up to the competition, the team engaged in intensive preparation, combining legal analysis, case studies, and realistic simulations that reflect the complexity of contemporary armed conflicts. Through moot court exercises, crisis scenarios, and collaborative training sessions, participants are strengthening their legal reasoning, ethical judgment, teamwork, and capacity to navigate uncertainty in high-pressure environments.
As emphasized in the Observatory’s approach to Jean-Pictet, this preparation is not limited to technical mastery of international humanitarian law. It also aims to foster reflection on the limits of legal frameworks, the responsibilities of legal actors in conflict situations, and the central importance of human dignity and civilian protection. In this spirit, the competition is approached as a collective learning journey rather than a purely academic performance.
The upcoming 2026 participation builds on the experience of previous cohorts and reflects the Observatory’s commitment to ensuring the transmission of knowledge, practices, and values between generations of students. Former participants and mentors play an essential role in supporting the new team and maintaining the program's continuity.
As the team prepares to represent the University of Ottawa in Dilijan, this participation marks another step in the Observatory’s long-term engagement with the Jean-Pictet Competition and its broader mission to connect legal education, ethical responsibility, and real-world humanitarian challenges. Updates and reflections from the 2026 edition will be shared following the competition.