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The First all Africa Law Conference on the Individual Under African Law, Swaziland, 11–16 October, 1981

This ambitious conference attracted a wide attendance, not only from the host country and its neighbours in southern Africa, but from other parts of Africa and from farther afield. Its focus was firmly on the human rights situation in Africa as it affects the individual man and woman, in the context of the various kinds of laws, customary, religious, imported and enacted, which now control them. The preliminary papers of the conference stressed three main themes: (i) a consideration of legal problems arising in legal systems wherein individuals are subjected to competing and often overlapping judicial authorities; (ii) an identification of human rights problems in the context of selected legal problem areas; (iii) an analysis of measures that could be useful in solving the problems that present both practical and legal challenges. The wide scope of the conference is best demonstrated by the main topics of the papers that were presented. A session on the individual, marriage and family law concentrated on the position of women within existing legal systems. The discussions of this topic were notable for the partial polarisation between the sexes that was revealed, a polarisation which had abated by the time the conference came to draw up its final resolutions. Undoubtedly, the inferior status of women in many current African laws is one of the most pressing problems for the legislator; at the same time, the cultural and other obstacles to such a reform were very clearly brought out. A session on the individual and property ownership brought a further clash of views. In a period when the number of planned and state-controlled economies in Africa is increasing, there must obviously be a sharp discussion both about the success of such economies, and the fundamental principles which should inform the design of a property system. Whose interests are to be paramount, in other words: the individual holder of property, or the community within which he holds that property? Just as many problems were revealed in a session on the individual and the courts. At the same time successful adaptations of previous judicial systems were brought to notice. Integration of laws, the dual legal system as it affects blacks in the Republic of South Africa, and the goals and problems of law reform in Africa were topics for other sessions. Despite the liveliness, and even at times the sharpness of the conflict between opposing views, which were manifest in the discussion periods, the most striking features of the conference were first the serious spirit in which participants faced up to the weaknesses of existing legal systems, and secondly, the unanimity with which a set of general resolutions was adopted at the close of the conference. As these resolutions are sure to be of general interest, their text is given below.