African customary law: The problem of concept and definition

Abstract

There is no single definition of customary law agreed by lawyers, jurists, social anthropologists and others who may be concerned with it. This in itself is not surprising for both “custom” and “law” may be used in a number of differing senses depending upon the requirements of a writer's approach. The fact that these terms may mean different things to different persons in different contexts is not in itself important. But the place of customary law in the developing legal systems of new African states is a matter of some considerable contemporary importance which calls for some precise definition in this immediate respect. In general terms it may perhaps be said that here a lawyer looks for rules of law such as are familiar to him in other legal systems, whilst the anthropologist is more concerned with the interaction between law and the social and political system of a people, and in any case recognizes that legal relationships are but a part of the total relationships between...