Africa Union

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AFRICAN UNION LAW: THE EMERGENCE OF A SUI GENERIS LEGAL ORDER WRITTEN BY OLUFEMI AMAO ROUTLEDGE (LONDON AND NEW YORK)

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Robert Home*

INTRODUCTION

The African Union (AU), since its Constitutive Act in 2000, has grown from an initial 27 member states to now include all 55 countries on the African continent. The initiative came from the late President Gaddafi of Libya – an “unlikely figure”, according to Amao, p. 16 – who called for Africa to create a robust international body at an “extraordinary summit” of the former Organization for African Union (OAU), held in his home town of Sirte in 1999. The last state to join, or rather rejoin – since it had split from the former OAU – was Morocco, in 2017.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v10i2.10

* Robert Home, MA PhD MRTPI Emeritus Professor in Land Management, Anglia Ruskin University (UK). Email Robert.home@anglia.ac.uk.

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TURNING FISH SOUP BACK INTO FISH: THE WICKED PROBLEM OF AFRICAN COMMUNITY LAND RIGHTS

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Robert Home* and Faith Kabata**

ABSTRACT Africa’s postcolonial disputes over community land rights are a “wicked” problem, not evil, but resistant to resolution. This article investigates three such disputes in Kenya (Endorois, Ogiek and Nubian community) where the African Commission and Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights have determined in the communities’ favour but the implementation is not progressing, both because of opposition by the state and the complex and long-standing nature of the cases. The legal history of colonial trust lands and recent community land legislation is discussed, the three key cases are summarized, and issues of indigenous people’s status, admissibility and respondent government discussed in relation to the UN Declarations on Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1987), Right to Development (1986), and Land Issues (2009). Practical and political aspects of implementing the determinations are examined, and recommendations proposed.

Keywords: Indigenous people’s rights; Endorois; Ogiek; Nubian community; Kibera; land law reform; African Union enforcement.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v9i2.2

* MA PhD MRTPI Emeritus Professor in Land Management, Anglia Ruskin University (UK). Email Robert.home@anglia.ac.uk.

** LL.B, LL.M LL.D Law Lecturer, Kenyatta University School of Law (Kenya) Email: kabata.faith@ku.ac.ke