Africa in Developing International Law

It is assumed by many that only Europe played a role in developing international law. A few people argue that Africa played a role in the development. In this essay, I will show that contrary to this popular belief Africa in the Dark and Middle Ages influenced international Law.

Hennie Strydom acknowledges that Europe influenced the evolution of international law in the end of the 1500s by forming what is referred to as a state. He writes, “To this development, we owe the demise of the feudal overlords and their privately owned dominium, which, overtime, were replaced by the state as res publica, a public matter, with a central government authority.”[1] He argues that the state established an authority that was for the general interest of the public within a state as opposed to the feudal system which was in the private interest of the ruler. From this then emerged sovereignty of the state that can either enter into relations with or meddle in other states or form regional alliances according to treaties.

As a result of these state formations, wars and colonization emerged. Strydom in his compiled book International Law further mentions how from the 1600s onwards there was rivalry between European states to dominate other states by force through military interventions and also spreading European ideals after the American War of Independence in the late 1700s introduced a democratic republic that was incorporated into the concept of the state. With this new democracy, Europe embarked on a political hegemony without military intervention and this further lead to wars against nations such as Germany, Russia and China that refused to abide by the idea.

Colonization was not intended for international solidarity or peace that influenced international law, but it was for profit, exploitation and accumulation of national wealth. Karl Marx summed it up well when he wrote, “In Western Europe, the homeland of political economy, the process of primitive accumulation has more or less been accomplished. Here the capitalist regime has more or less subordinated to itself the whole of the nations’ production, or, where economic relations are less developed, it has at least indirect control of the social layers which, although they belong to the antiquated mode of production, still continue to exist side by side with it.”[2]

In pre-colonial era, however, the role of Africa in developing international law is evident. One African leader who wrote about the history of Africa is the first president of the United Republic of Tanzania, Julius Kambarge Nyerere. He wrote that European culture of colonization was alien to the egalitarian African traditions. He wrote that “in our traditional African society, we were individuals within a community. We took care of the community and the community took care of us. We neither needed nor wished to exploit our fellow men.”[3]

Against readily available evidence, Tajim Olawale Elias, a legal scholar and a jurist from Nigeria, provided evidence of the egalitarian African tradition observed in the dark and middle ages. He corroborated how the development of cities such as the Timbuktu in Ghana lured medieval Europeans and the world in search of learning and also how the Carthigean city’s gateway in Tripoli lured modern explorers like Denham, Clapperton and Berth who travelled into the heart of Africa. He also gave account of how some of these travellers wrote about their observations of Africa.

Leo Africanus who travelled Western Sudan in 1526 described the Songhai of Askia the great Kingdom’s court as a “store of doctors, judges, priests and other learned men that were bountifully maintained at the king’s cost and charges.” Lourenco Pinto, who also travelled from Portugal in August 1691, described the kingdom of Benin as “Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets ran straight and as far as the eyes can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king which is merely decorated and has fine columns. Theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses. The artisans have their places carefully allocated in the square counted altogether one hundred and talented Goldsmiths in workshops.”[4]

Thus it is evident that pre-colonial Africa had developed an egalitarian organization that did not require laws against crime because as Julius Nyerere wrote the community took care of its people as the king took care of its people by maintaining their needs and allocating houses.

Elias also gives evidence that Africans had developed the capacity to trade. He corroborates how the ancient African Timbuktu city was the meeting place for people who travelled by water and land to trade salt, dates, grain, kola nuts and gold dust and also how the Carthigean City had Tripoli as the gateway for people who traded wool, skins Timber, purple dye, ivory, ostrich feathers with West Africa in the sixth century. This reflects the African’s development to utilize the geographical pattern of nature to trade between North Africa and West Africa using Timbuktu as the meeting place and Tripoli as the gateway to the Sahara in North Africa.

In the same way, Africans had also developed the capacity to communicate effectively. They concluded treaties that excluded foreigners in Greece, Rome and Spain from participating in their trade within Africa and also developed relations with Portugal who were the first to develop routes into exploring Africa, trading with Benin in cowries’ currency.

Therefore, from this developed pre-colonial African civilization, it can be said that medieval Europeans and modern explorers alike came to learn in order to develop or progress their laws on the foundations of African activities: trading and their internal and external relations. It can also be said that cultures observed in Timbuktu such as the centre of learning that the world came to explore had also been copied. There is evidence that the Greek and Roman copied the Chronos, although in mutilated form, that were built by the Carthigeans to honour the Hanno expeditions. The earliest explorers from Portugal also followed the routes that were used in the Hanno expedition. Therefore, it can be said that it is in this way from the earliest era that Africa played a significant role in developing international law.

Bibliography

1.     H Strydom (ed) International Law (Oxford University Press Cape Town 2016)

2.     K Marx Capital Vol 1 (Penguin Books England 1990)

3.     J Nyerere Ujamma: the basis of African Socialism (Oxford University Press Daar Es Salaam 1968)

4.     T Elias Africa and the Development of International Law (Oceana Publications South Africa 1972)

---