The Historiography of International Law in Sub-Saharan Africa - Inge Van Hulle

The Edinburgh Centre for International and Global Law presents

The Historiography of International Law in Sub-Saharan Africa

Dr Inge Van Hulle, Tilburg University

About the seminar
When the story of the historiography of international law in Sub-Saharan Africa is told at all, then it is often a comparatively short and supposedly recent one. Those who venture into the realm of African historiography of international law mostly feature Nigerian lawyer and judge Taslim O. Elias and Oji Umozurike as main protagonists. This historiography – while important – leaves a number of blind spots that seem to suggest that prior to decolonisation, African scholars did not engage in theoretical debates concerning international law, let alone in its history. It seems that those engaging in the intellectual history of international law have used the disciplinary tools and markers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western international law in searching for non-Western authors. However, the writings of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century African intellectuals who reflected on questions of international law, international relations and their historical roots did not follow a traditional Western-style template to disseminate their ideas. Many of the authors discussed in this chapter were embedded in and influenced by Pan-Africanist thought as a narrative register and political project. This chapter argues that Pan-Africanism can be used as a lens through which to view Black authors’ attitudes towards their own history and that of European international law prior to the emergence of formally independent African states. It outlines what has been at stake for African and Black authors, when they used historical discourse in their works on international law or on Africa’s international place in the world and identifies three different types of historical discourse: ‘ethnographical’ discourse, ‘meta-historical’ discourse and ‘contributionist’ discourse.

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