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Customary Law and the Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Francis Snyder
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Extract

In this paper I discuss some aspects of the relationship of African customary law to the economy. Such a vast topic potentially embraces at least three different themes: the economic context in which African customary law has developed and operates today; the economic consequences and implications of different African customary laws; and the relationship between customary law and the economic aspect of society. These three themes inevitably overlap, but while recognising their interconnections I shall concentrate primarily on the third. My principal aim is to identify some of the linkages between customary law and economic relations, especially those linkages which become manifest during broad social changes.

An examination of the relationship between customary law and the economy in Africa almost ineluctably requires an historical perspective. This is so, first, because, as I suggest later, customary law is historically specific: it developed in particular historical circumstances and in close conjunction with the formation of the colonial state. Thus, the foundations of customary law in Africa lie partly in the development of capitalism and its expansion from Europe during the colonial era. These interrelated processes have decisively moulded and subtly shaped the law, legal institutions and legal professions of contemporary Africa.

More generally, however, it is essential today to envisage the possibility of new, alternative forms of development and social regulation. The particular forms of legal pluralism which characterise third world countries indicate, in many cases, that the subsumption of African economies within capitalist relations of production and exchange has thus far been merely partial and formal.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of African Law , Volume 28 , Issue 1-2: The Construction and Transformation of African Customary Law , Spring 1984 , pp. 34 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1984

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References

1 Ghai, Y. P., Luckham, A. R. and Snyder, F. G. (eds.), The Political Economy of Law: A Third World Reader, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1985.Google Scholar

2 For details, see Snyder, F. G., “Colonialism and Legal Form: The Creation of Customary Law’ in Senegal”, in Sumner, C. (ed.), Crime, Justice and Underdevelopment, London, Heinemann Educational Books, 1981, 90–121.Google Scholar

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4 Snyder, F. G., “Law and Development in the Light of Dependency Theory”, (1980) 14. Some implications of this contrast are discussed in Law and Society Review 723–804;Google Scholar“The Failure of ‘Law and Development’”, (Review article on Gardner, J., Legal Imperialism: American Lawyers and Foreign Aid in Latin America (1982) 3 Wisconsin Law Review 373–396.Google Scholar

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6 Snyder, F. G., (1980): see n. 4 above, 775.Google Scholar

7 See e.g. McIntosh, M., “Fruit and Vegetables as an International Commodity: the Relocation of Horticultural Production and Its Implications for the Producers”, (1977) Food Policy, 11, 277–292;Google ScholarDowning, T. E., “The Internationalisation of Capital in Agriculture”, (1982) 41 Human Organisation, 269–277;Google ScholarSnyder, F. G., Law of the Common Agricultural Policy, London, Sweet and Maxwell, 1985.Google Scholar

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10 Snyder, F. G., “Land Law and the Transition to Capitalism: Natural History of a Senegalese Case Study”, in Luckham, R., (ed), Law and Social Enquiry: Case Studies of Research. Uppsala. Scandinavian Institute of African Studies and New York, International Center for Law in Development, 1981, 76–109.Google Scholar

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12 For details, Snyder, F. G., “Labour, Power and Legal Transformation in Senegal”, (1981) 21 Review of African Political Economy, 26–43.Google Scholar

13 See, Snyder, F. G., Capitalism and Legal Change: An African Transformation, New York, Academic Press, 1981.Google Scholar

14 See, Snyder, F. G., “Anthropology, Dispute Processes and Law: A Critical Introduction”, (1981) 8 (2) British Journal of Law and Society, 141–180 at 165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar