In almost all the former British African territories the colonial power tried to make use of the traditional dispute settlement agencies which it found on arrival. The history of these efforts is familiar, following a generally similar course in most territories. The arrangements made in the early years were haphazard; a good deal of formalization took place around 1930; more profound changes were initiated in the early 1960's and have continued since. But the familiar legislative history yields little information about what has been happening on the ground. We know very little of the way in which the traditional agencies drawn into the official system actually reacted towards this process of incorporation. Leaving aside what the statute may have said, have they remained the agencies to which Africans actually resorted for the settlement of their disputes? Has the type of business coming before them changed? Similarly we know little about those agencies, typically at the lower levels, which did not undergo incorporation. Have they continued to function, or have they simply died away?

Prior to 1969 the legal system of Botswana enjoyed the characteristics of the dual existence of customary and common law (and the courts in which they were administered) typical of most of Anglophone Africa. The common or general law was the Roman-Dutch law “received” from the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope and this was the only law to be applied in the ordinary courts (High Court and Subordinate Courts) in the exercise of their original jurisdiction. Customary law was the preserve of the customary courts. Three main questions were inherent in the working of this system:

(1) How was it to be determined which system of law (and, therefore, which system of courts) was appropriate for deciding a particular case?

(2) If it was decided that customary law was to be applied, which system of customary law was appropriate?

(3) Again, if customary law was to be applied, how were its rules to be ascertained in the courts?

The Customary Law (Application and Ascertainment) Act of 1969 appended to this article, introduced far-reaching changes in the administration of the dual legal system and in particular contained for the first time statutory answers to the questions posed above.

Les Membres de l'Association ont eu de multiples occasions de se retrouver au cours de la seconde moitié de l'année 1972. Ce fut d'abord à Uppsala, à la fin août, lors de la Conférence à laquelle est consacré le présent numéro de notre organe officiel; à cette occasion, le Bureau de l'Association se réunit également. Puis, à la fin septembre, se tint la Conférence organisée par le Centre d'Etudes d'Afrique Noire de l'Institut d'Etudes politiques de Bordeaux sur le thème Droit et Développement en Afrique; simultanément, l'Association tint son Assemblée générale annuelle et reconduit à sa présidence, M. le Premier Président Keba M'Baye. Le procès-verbal de cette assemblée doit être parvenu à tous les membres à l'heure qu'il est. Avec ce procès-verbal, ils ont du recevoir la liste des Membres de l'Association ainsi que les statuts tels qu'ils ont été modifiés à Bordeaux.

Africa quite suddenly came within the focus of the world's political microscope in the last decade or so. Having thus come into view, it has aroused the interests not only of political scientists but also of lawyers all over the world to an extent almost unprecedented in world history. The colonial powers which had ruled most of Africa in modern times had themselves had centuries of political autonomy behind them. Within the past two decades these colonial powers have had, mainly voluntarily but in some cases as a result of revolt by the governed, to transfer political power to most of their erstwhile dependent peoples.

When the Commission on the Law of Marriage and Divorce in Kenya presented its Report in 1968, the basic scheme of its proposals, and the draft Bill it had prepared for the reform and integration of the laws, were widely welcomed and it has been a disappointment to many—not least, it may be supposed, to the members of the Commission—that four years have passed without those proposals having been translated into statutory form in Kenya. It is a little ironic, though no doubt an interesting example of East African inter-dependence, that the essential basis of those proposals, and indeed in many respects the detailed draft provisions which accompanied them, have now been given their first legislative effect not in Kenya but in Tanzania.

Forms by which children born outside a family unit are taken into the family have existed since time immemorial in Ethiopia. These forms have varied depending upon the ethnic, religious and regional groupings involved. The relationships created range from rather loose affirmations of close friendship and mutual interest to complete assimilation of the outsider as if he had been born within the family. This article will be concerned only with the later type of customary assimilation, which we will term “adoption”.

Je voudrais, au nom de l'Association internationale de Droit Africain que j'ai l'honneur de présider, remercier toutes les personnes et toutes les organisations, grâce à qui ce colloque sur “les mécanismes et procédures juridiques destinés à contribuer à l'évolution économique dans les organisations internationales africaines”, a pu se tenir.

In studying economic co-operation in Africa, it might be useful to start with an investigation of the special characteristics of African international organizations, and the effect of these characteristics on the modalities of African economic co-operation.

Any comparative study of African international organizations has to take into account the bewildering variety of these organizations, and the difficulty of classifying them in a meaningful fashion. There are many factors which need to be considered, as well as the fact that most organizations belong at the same time to various categories. When one tries to evaluate the respective merits of various organizations, one finds quickly that it is really not a particular feature of an organization that matters, but that an organization's performance depends, to an important extent, on the special mixture of various characteristics, which is peculiar to that organization.