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.

This definitive handbook is the first reference of its kind bringing together knowledge, scholarship, and debates on themes and issues concerning African women everywhere. It unearths, critiques, reviews, analyses, theorizes, synthesizes and evaluates African women’s historical, social, political, economic, local and global lives and experiences with a view to decolonizing the corpus. This Handbook questions the gendered roles and positions of African women and the structures, institutions, and processes of policy, politics, and knowledge production that continually construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct African women and the study of them. Contributors offer a consistent emphasis on debunking erroneous and misleading myths about African women's roles and positions, bringing their previously marginalized stories to relief, and ultimately re-writing their histories. Thus, this Handbook enlarges the scope of the field, challenges its orthodoxies, and engenders new subjects, theories, and approaches. This reference work includes, to the greatest extent possible, the voices of African women themselves as writers of their own stories. The detailed, rigorous and up-to-date analyses in the work represent a variety of theoretical, methodological, and transdisciplinary approaches. This reference work will prove vital in charting new directions for the study of African women, and will reverberate in future studies, generating new debates and engendering further interest.

A book on legal philosophy, necessarily, focuses attention on law. In addition to this focus, An Introduction to an African Legal Philosophy focuses attention on philosophy. The link between law and philosophy is brought into relief, which is done through an African context. An attempt is made to spell out what is African about legal philosophy without being cut off of African legal philosophy from non-African legal philosophy. The book draws attention to the view that a basic component of African legal philosophy consists of an investigation of what it is to be an African, and because an African is a human being among other human beings, the investigation is about what it is to be a human being. Ubuntuism is an African-derived word that captures this mode of being human. Moreover, because human beings are cultural beings, African cultural context guides the investigation. Inescapably, it is claimed that, every legal philosophy is embedded in a culture. African legal philosophy is not an exception. It is deeply rooted in African culture –a culture that is today shaped, in part, by a European colonialist culture. One feature that will strike one as one reads the book is that the book approaches African legal philosophy as a means of decolonization of African culture. African legal philosophy can accomplish this intelligently and effectively if it is itself decolonized. In doing this it contrasts sharply with mainstream Western legal philosophy.

Martin Chanock's illuminating and definitive perspective on that development examines all areas of the law including criminal law and criminology; the Roman-Dutch law; the State's African law; and land, labour and 'rule of law' questions.

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.

The book explores the broad range of legal, personal, social, political and historical foundations of international law. The book is a collective effort of qualified authors- law school deans and professors, national and international court judges, young and old international law scholars and government lawyers from varying legal cultures across the oceans of the world, representing diverse legal philosophical and corresponding practices bringing their stories to life, telling tales helpful for those well-acquainted with the issues. Although one book of Liber Amicorum cannot address all the important issues in the vast arena of international law, these essays provide a rich and lucid understanding of issues of modern public international and comparative law. The beauty of the book lies in the fact that the issues discussed in the compendium by the diverse authors though familiar to comparatists, are given perspectives different from the usual Euro-American centrist standpoint that dominated the current writings in international law. The collected essays will be found most useful as an informative tool in the discovery of progressive development of international law as well as in the study of comparative legal systems. *** The legal essays contained in this treatise on various important issues of public international and comparative law are interesting, well researched, and written from multi-disciplinary perspectives by very well-qualified legal scholars from different backgrounds and cultures of the world. All the authors are exceptionally knowledgeable and experts in their chosen fields. It is strongly urged that people should read these essays in order to fully appreciate the contributions of international legal scholars to world peace, international development, understanding and progress. Nothing can be more befitting in honoring Professor Dr. Christian Nwachukwu Okeke for his enormous contributions to the positive development of the legal academy nationally and internationally. Professor Dr. Emmanuel Omoh Esiemokhai Ph.D., Academic Chancellor, Bosas International Law Bureau, Abuja, Nigeria Chima Nweze's Contemporary Issues on Public International and Comparative Law: Essays in Honor of Professor Christian Nwachukwu Okeke, is a magisterial work of enormous scope and depth that brings together a diverse group of internationally distinguished authors from academia, government and private practice. The Liber Amicorum is impressive both in range of subject matter and quality of analysis and merits the attention of scholars and global policy makers. Ndiva Kofele Kale, Ph.D., J.D., Professor of Law, Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law, Dallas, Texas Professor C.N. Okeke is a very fine scholar in international law. He has taught the subject in Universities in Africa, Europe and the United States. In all these continents, he has made tremendous impact on students of the subject. I regard the essays as a useful epilogue to his successful career as a teacher and researcher of international law. I heartily recommend the essays to all that are interested in the study of international law. I have no doubt in my mind that the essays will provide a useful addition to the growing literature in international law. I commend the contributors for a worthy compendium.

This rich and remarkable volume offers an overview of the most important schools, movements and trends which make up the theoretical landscape of contemporary international law, as well as the works of over 500 authors. It moves beyond generalization and examines how the relevant literature deals with the basic issues of the international legal system, such as international obligations, legitimacy, compliance, unity and universality, the rule of law, human rights, use of force and economics. It offers insights into the addressees (the state, international organizations, individuals and other private persons), and the construction of international law, including law-making, the relationship between norms, and interpretation. Moreover, it widens the discourse by addressing old, yet enduring, as well as new concerns about the functioning of the international legal system, and presents views of non-international lawyers and political scientists regarding that system. It is a valuable analysis for researchers, students, and practitioners.