4 research outputs found
Africanisation of Legal Education Programmes: The need for Comparative African Legal Studies
Debates and discussions about the African renaissance and the Africanisation of universities have raged for
decades. The goal of developing an emancipatory Afrocentric system that frees African education from the
continuous and dominant influence of Euro- and American-centric cultural values remains a challenge. This
is particularly so with respect to conventional African legal training and research programmes. Some African
legal scholars, sometimes imbued with xenophilia, have in many ways participated in the process that has
seen the continuous marginalisation of studies on the law in Africa and African law. This paper argues that
there is a need to rethink the place devoted to the study of African law and African legal systems. It contends
that African law generally and African legal systems specifically will hardly be able to develop when presentday
students spend most of their time, especially in a course such as comparative law, studying western
legal systems. In order for African legal education to be relevant and meaningful it must prepare and equip
today’s lawyers to operate in a global world. It is therefore suggested that an Africanised legal programme
should include a course on African legal studies and aim to be contextually and globally relevant whilst being
sufficiently innovative and flexible to address the urgent needs of our times.http://jas.sagepub.comam201
Provisional Measures under the African Human Rights System
This chapter discusses the legal characteristics of provisional measures
under the African Human Rights System, partly with the aim to fill the gaps found
in the works of the Rapporteur on provisional measures of the Institute of International
Law. After a brief overview of the provisional measures issued by the African
Commission, it examines the precautionary power of the African Court, reaching the
conclusion that the Court is inconsistent in the use of such power. This conclusion
derives from an analysis of three main and interrelated critical issues, namely: (i) the
binding or recommendatory nature of the provisional measures of the African Court;
(ii) their domestic implementation; and (iii) the potential responsibility of States that
fail to implement them. These critical issues are introduced and observed through
the lens of the paradigmatic Sa\ueff al-Islam Kadhafi case, where the African Court
first stated that the provisional measures were binding on the State concerned but
then, after ascertaining the lack of compliance with such measures, abstained from
declaring any resulting international responsibility of that State