Spotlight on Africa: Launching a new feature of the IACL-AIDC Blog

We are thrilled to announce that in the next several months the Blog will project a constitutional spotlight on the African continent. In preparation for the IACL-AIDC World Congress of 2022, which for the first time will be hosted in Africa, we will feature blog posts presenting the constitutional features of several African jurisdictions. We will bring to you blog posts written in English or in French in which constitutional experts from the region will present, from their perspective, significant characteristics of the constitutional system of various African jurisdictions. Given the diversity within Africa, we are mindful that this is an ambitious project. This initiative will be led by Dr Berihun Gebeye with the support of established scholars of the region. We are grateful for their assistance and cooperation. 

It seems to us that we are at a particular point in the evolution of comparative constitutional law, where there is both an outstanding need for and a heightened sensitivity to accounting for global diversity in terms of legal systems, regime types, geography, culture, religion, economic capabilities, ethnicity, etc. In this regard, the African continent has much to offer to the universe of comparative constitutional law. Our aim is to facilitate that process by providing a platform for scholars to share their insights on African constitutional systems with our global readership. We are confident that this effort will enrich the theoretical and empirical reservoirs of our field. Moreover, we believe that featuring individual jurisdictions in this way will help to set the tone and context for the 2022 World Congress in South Africa.

Dinesha Samararatne, Erika Arban and Berihun Gebeye.

Suggested citation: Dinesha Samararatne, Erika Arban and Berihun Gebeye, ‘Spotlight on Africa: Launching a new feature of the IACL-AIDC Blog’, IACL-AIDC Blog (07 September 2021) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/spotlight-on-africa/2021/9/7/spotlight-on-africa-launching-a-new-feature-of-the-iacl-aidc-blog.