Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The role of international law in the colonization of Africa: a review in light of recent calls for re-colonization
Author:Dakas, Dakas C.J.ISNI
Year:1999
Periodical:African Yearbook of International Law
Volume:7
Pages:85-118
Language:English
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:colonization
international law
Abstract:There is often a penchant for recourse to international law in a bid to validate the case for the re-colonization of Africa currently being advanced by some political analysts and academics. While international law has undoubtedly undergone a remarkable transformation over the years and no longer portrays itself, at least not explicitly, as the exclusive preserve of the 'civilized', vigilance is nonetheless required. In this light the present author examines the role of nineteenth-century international law in the colonial project. International legal scholars, with few exceptions, provided intellectual justification for the acquisition of territory by Europeans in Africa. The views of John Westlake, at the time Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge, on precolonial Africa as 'uncivilized' and 'devoid of sovereignty' and his invocation of the doctrine of 'terra nullius' to obviate the contradictions posed by the legal status of treaties with 'uncivilized natives/tribes', are largely representative of the perspectives of his Western contemporaries. Examination of the colonial question at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, the partition of Africa, and the regime of 'colonial protectorates', all point to the exploitation of Africa's resources as the primary goal of the colonial project, notwithstanding the rhetoric of the 'civilizing' mission. Nineteenth-century international law, given its Eurocentricity, failed to reckon with the reality of Africa's authentic history and the sovereignty of precolonial African States. While colonialism lasted, the colonial powers were de facto sovereigns although de jure sovereignty continued to repose in the respective African States. Thus the sovereignty of African States was, at the very least, in abeyance during the reign of colonialism in Africa. Notes, ref.
Views