African Legal Theory And Contemporary Problems

The book is a collection of essays, which aim to situate African legal theory in the context of the myriad of contemporary global challenges; from the prevalence of war to the misery of poverty and disease to the crises of the environment. Apart from being problems that have an indelible African mark on them, a common theme that runs throughout the essays in this book is that African legal theory has been excluded, under-explored or under-theorised in the search for solutions to such contemporary problems. The essays make a modest attempt to reverse this trend. The contributors investigate and introduce readers to the key issues, questions, concepts, impulses and problems that underpin the idea of African legal theory. They outline the potential offered by African legal theory and open up its key concepts and impulses for critical scrutiny. This is done in order to develop a better understanding of the extent to which African legal theory can contribute to discourses seeking to address some of the challenges that confront African and non-African societies alike.

The papers presented in this volume aim to contribute to the development of African legal theory. Issues discussed include: legal anthropology, customary law in the state legal system; legal concepts; and procedural and substantive justice.

Right from the enslavement era through to the colonial and contemporary eras, Africans have been denied their human essence portrayed as indistinct from animals or beasts for imperial burdens, Africans have been historically dispossessed and exploited. Postulating the theory of global jurisprudential apartheid, the book accounts for biases in various legal systems, norms, values and conventions that bind Africans while affording impunity to Western states. Drawing on contemporary notions of animism, transhumanism, posthumanism and science and technology studies, the book critically interrogates the possibility of a jurisprudence of anticipation which is attentive to the emergent New World Order that engineers human beings to become nonhumans while nonhumans become humans. Connecting discourses on decoloniality with jurisprudence in the areas of family law, environment, indigenisation, property, migration, constitutionalism, employment and labour law, commercial law and Ubuntu, the book also juggles with emergent issues around Earth Jurisprudence, ecocentrism, wild law, rights of nature, Earth Court and Earth Tribunal. Arguing for decoloniality that attends to global jurisprudential apartheid., this tome is handy for legal scholars and practitioners, social scientists, civil society organisations, policy makers and researchers interested in transformation, decoloniality and Pan-Africanism.

How should disability justice be conceptualised, not by orthodox human rights or capabilities approaches, but by a legal philosophy that mirrors an African relational community ideal? This book develops the first comprehensive answer to this question through the contemporary literature on African philosophy, which is relied upon to construct a legal philosophy of disability justice comprising of ethical ideals of community, human relationships and obligations. From these ideals, an African legal philosophy of disability justice is offered as a criterion for critically evaluating existing laws, legal and political institutions, as well as providing an ethical basis for creating new ones to ensure that they are inclusive to people with disabilities. In taking an alternative perspective on the subject, the book outlines and emphasises the need for a new public culture of obligations owed to people with disabilities, highlighting both the prospects and difficulties of achieving the ideal of disability justice that continues to elude the lived experiences of millions of Africans today. Oche Onazi's An African Path to Disability Justice is the first book-length exploration of disability in the light of African ethics, as contrasted with the human rights and capabilities frameworks. Of particular interest are Onazi's thoughtful reflections on how various conceptions of community salient in African moral philosophy––including group-based, reciprocal and relational––bear on what we owe to the disabled. --Thaddeus Metz, Distinguished Professor, University of Johannesburg

This insightful Research Handbook provides a definitive overview of the New Legal Realism (NLR) movement, reaching beyond historical and national boundaries to form new conversations. Drawing on deep roots within the law-and-society tradition, it demonstrates the powerful virtues of new legal realist research and its attention to the challenges of translation between social science and law. It explores an impressive range of contemporary issues including immigration, policing, globalization, legal education, and access to justice, concluding with and examination of how different social science disciplines intersect with NLR.

The author is a Don at the School of Law, University of Nairobi Kenya and a development consultant with various NGOs and other international bodies in Eastern Africa region and Italy. He is a researcher and writer of articles and texts on matters concerning law and culture. Dr. Onyango is an expert in modern legal science with wide knowledge of law ranging from comparative legal system, international public law, ethics, philosophy, theology, sociology, mass media and social realities today. He is currently teaching Social Foundations of Law, Customary Law, International Public Law and International Relations at the University of Nairobi and he is a part-time lecturer at St. Pauls University. Among his publication are Cultural Gap and Economic Crisis in Africa and, Dholuo Grammar for Beginners.

First published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.