GCLS 2025 Agenda

One day. Endless insights.
One summit shaping Africa’s creative legal future.

🕘 9:00 AM – 9:15 AM

Welcome Address

🕤 9:15 am to 10:15 am

Mock Trial

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🕙 10:25 am to 11:25 am

Mock Trial Competition

This mock trial competition puts the spotlight on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as a vital tool for resolving conflicts in the creative and commercial sectors. Through simulated proceedings, participants will showcase how arbitration, mediation, and negotiation can offer faster, fairer, and more cost-effective outcomes than traditional litigation.

With real-world case scenarios drawn from the entertainment and creative industries, this session aims to educate, engage, and inspire a new generation of lawyers and creatives to embrace ADR as a first resort not a last resort.

🕚12:00 pm to 12:45 pm

Debate Presentation:

Does AI Democratize or Endanger Africa’s creative economy?

As artificial intelligence reshapes the global creative landscape, Africa stands at a crossroads. Is AI a tool that levels the playing field, giving more creators access to resources, exposure, and revenue? Or does it pose an existential threat to originality, ownership, and the cultural identity of African creativity?

In this high-stakes debate, two teams of legal and creative minds go head-to-head to unpack the opportunities and dangers of AI in Africa’s creative economy. Expect bold arguments, sharp rebuttals, and critical insights into the future of law, art, and technology on the continent.

🕛1:00 pm to 1:30 pm

Panel 1: Creative Counsel

Soft Skills for Cross-Market Deal-Making in the Creative Economy

Key focus areas include

🕧 1:40 pm to 2:30 pm

Panel 2: Algorithms, Ownership & Africa

Navigating AI’s Disruption of the African Creative Economy

As AI-generated content floods the global marketplace from music and art to scripts and fashion design African creatives and their legal teams face a new frontier. How do we determine ownership when an artwork is generated by a prompt? Can African IP laws protect against the global scraping of native sounds, styles, and stories? What is the role of blockchain in verifying provenance and authorship?

This panel explores the seismic shifts AI is causing across the African creative economy. Together, a global AI law expert, a blockchain-based art entrepreneur, and a music tech entrepreneur will unpack the legal, technological, and ethical questions shaping the future of creation. It’s a call to arms for lawyers and creatives alike: adapt or be automated.

Learn how to navigate this landscape, avoid IP pitfalls, assert authorship, and prepare for a future where code and creativity coexist or collide.

🕑 2:40 pm to 3:30 pm

Fireside Chat

Threading Law Into Fashion: The Legal Architect Behind Global Expansion

Key focus areas include:

🕝 3:40 pm to 4:30 pm

Workshop 1

Cross-Market Music Business Law — Rights, Revenue & IP in a Connected Creative Economy

Practical insights:

🕞4:40 pm to 5:30 pm

Workshop 2: The Hidden Engine

Mastering Supply Chains in Africa’s Entertainment Economy

Learn how to: