Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T19:02:20.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Myth and reality of law, language and international organization in Africa: the case of African Economic Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Extract

The contemporary African international community is afflicted by a linguistic dilemma. On the one hand, the African elites are constrained to accept the imperative of adopting the inherited colonial languages in order to gain easy access to the global international community currently dominated by the linguistic condominium of the erstwhile imperial powers. On the other hand, these African elites, propelled by nationalistic sentiments, express in legal instruments a sanguine hope of promoting their indigenous tongues to the rank of official/working languages, not only on the national, but also on the continental scale. This would appear necessary in order to avoid cultural or linguistic suicide. However, in concept and practice, the whole idea seems to have remained in the realm of myth.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Omolewa, M., “Myth and reality of the colonial legacy in Nigerian Education 1951–84”, in T.N., Tamuno et al. (eds.), Nigeria since Independence: The First 25 Years, Vol. 3, Ibadan, 1989, 934.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 18.

3 Article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. P. Allott, “Language, method and the nature of international law”, British Yearbook of International Law, 1971, 133.

4 Butler, W.E., “Comparative approaches to international law”, in Recueil des Cours, Vol. 190, Alphen aan den Rijn, 1985, 57.Google Scholar

5 Ostrover, A., Language, Law and Diplomacy: A Study of Linguistic Diversity in Official International Relations and International Law, Philadelphia, 1965Google Scholar. Satow, E., A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, 4th ed., London, 1957Google Scholar. Scott, J.B., Lefrancais langue diplomatique modeme, Paris, 1924Google Scholar. Hilf, M., Die Auslegung mehrsprachiger Vertraege, Berlin, 1973, 510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Butler, op. cit., 57

7 Oppenheim, L., International Law, Vol. 1, 8th ed.London, 1974, 771–72.Google Scholar

8 McNair, A.D., Law of Treaties, Oxford, 1961, 30; see also Hilf, op. cit., 27.Google Scholar

9 Hilf, op. cit, 27.

10 International Law Commission Report, cited in Harris, D.J., Cases and Materials on International Law, London, 1973, 592.Google Scholar

11 Bernhardt, R. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Instalment 6, North-Holland, 1983, 301–308; D.W. Bowett, The Law of International Institutions, 3rd ed., London, 1975, 215–224; R.A. Akindele places the OAU in the broad perspective of international regionalism: see (1988) 14 Mgerian Journal of International Affairs 10–30.Google Scholar

12 Ajulo, S.B., “Law, language and international organisation in Africa: the case of ECOWAS”,[1985] 29 J.A.L.Google Scholar

13 S.B. Ajulo “The revised ECOWAS Treaty: a politico-legal analysis (forthcoming).

14 I owe this point to Professor C.M.B. Brann through correspondence in early 1994.

15 Mackey, W.F. “Language diversity, language policy and sovereign state”, in Brann, C.M.B. (ed), History of European Ideas, Vol. 13, Oxford, 1991, 53.Google Scholar

16 Lijhart, A., Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration, New Haven, 1977, 7880Google Scholar. The author identifies language as one of the cross-cutting cleavages in Belgium and Switzerland. If this phenomenon has not yet come to the fore in Africa it is because a temporary solution has been found in the colonial linguistic heritage, for Africa is replete with plural societies.

17 For a terminological definition, see Brann, C.M.B., “The terminology of Babel—a suggestion”, (1989) 19,2 Journal of West African Languages 125–27.Google Scholar

18 Hardy, J., “The interpretation of plurilingual treaties by international courts and tribunals”, (1961) 37 British Tear Book of International Law 72.Google Scholar

19 Brann, History of European Ideas, 109; see also “The terminology of Babel” for a definition of “linguism”, 126.

20 Brann, C.M.B., “Lingua Minor, Franca & Nationalis”, in Ammon, U. (ed.), Status and Function of Languages and Language Varieties, Berlin, 1989, 382.Google Scholar

21 For the latest development, see s. 58 of the 1995 Draft Constitution of Nigeria.

22 Gonidec, P.F., Les droit africans, Paris, 1968.Google Scholar

23 For instance, Journal of African Law (London) and African Journal of International and Comparative Law (London).

24 Elias, T.O., The Nature of African Customary Law, Manchester, 1956, 8–55Google Scholar; Meek, C.K., Law and Authority in Nigerian Tribe, New York, 1970, 325.Google Scholar

25 Mazrui, A., A World Federation of Cultures, New York, 1977.Google Scholar

26 Adewoye, O., The Judicial System in Southern Nigeria, 1934–1954, London, 1977, 1819.Google Scholar

27 Umozurike, U.O., International Law and Colonialism in Africa, Enugu, Nigeria, 1979, 2729.Google Scholar

28 Nwabueze, B.O., A Constitutional History of Algeria, London 1982, 1920.Google Scholar

29 Adewoye, op. cit.; See also Park, A.E., The Sources of Nigerian Law, London, 1963, 1145–47.Google Scholar

30 Elias, T.O., Africa and the Development of International Law, Leiden, 1972.Google Scholar

31 Newitt, M., Portugal in Africa, London, 1981, 175218.Google Scholar

32 Brann, C.M.B., Mother Tongue, Other Tongue and Further Tongue, Inaugural Lecture Series, No. 4, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria, 1980.Google Scholar

33 Babalola, S.A.O., “Literature in Nigerian languages and language planning in Nigeria”, in Nigerian National Merit Award Lectures, Vol. 2, Ibadan, 1989, 4347.Google Scholar

34 Fafunwa, A.B. et al. (eds.), Education in Mother Tongue, Ibadan, 1989.Google Scholar

35 Rwezaura, B., “Constraining factors to the adoption of Kiswahili as a language of the law in Tanzania”, [1993] 37 J.A.L 3045.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Bamgbose, A., Language and the Motion: The Language Question in Sub-Saharan Africa, Edinburgh, 1991, 2930.Google Scholar

37 For a discussion of African international law, see Gonidec, P.F., “Existe-t-il un droit international Africain?” (1993) 5 African Journal of International and Comparative Law 243259.Google Scholar

38 Bamgbose, op. cit, 58.

39 In a seminar held at the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of the University of Lagos in June 1994, the present writer tested this viewpoint. The reaction to it was negative. Most of the law teachers in attendance held the conservative view.

40 For the proceedings of the conference see Ajomo, M.A. et al. (eds.), African Economic Community Treaty: Issues Problems and Prospects, Lagos, 1993.Google Scholar

41 Ajulo, , “Law, language and international organisation”, 1416.Google Scholar

42 Afolayan, A., “African languages and literature in today’s world”, in Olaniyan, R. (ed.), African History and Culture, Nigeria, 1982, 180.Google Scholar

43 Brann, , “Lingua minor, franca and nationalis”, 379.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., 380; see also his Functions of world languages in West Africa”, (1978) 3 West African Journal of Modem Languages, 628.Google Scholar

46 Afolayan, op. cit.

47 Brann, , “Lingua minor, franca and nationalis”, 380.Google Scholar

48 Bamgbose, A., “African languages and national development”, paper delivered at a Seminar on the Teaching of African Languages in African Universities, 2024 July, 1981, at the University of Lagos, 5.Google Scholar

49 Ibid.12.

51 For the current trend, see de Swaan, A., “The evolving European language system: a theory of communication potential and language competition”, (1993) 14, 3International Political Science Review, 241255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Bamgbose, “African languages and national development”, 12.

53 Capo, H.B., “Comparative linguistics and language engineering in Africa”, in Emenanjo, E.N. (ed.), Multilingualism, Minority Languages and Language Policy in Nigeria, Agbor, Nigeria, 1990, 19.Google Scholar

54 Herbert, A., A Gift of Tongues, Lagos, 1974, 7Google Scholar. In a similar vein, Fafowora, O.F. advocated “the need for medical vocabulary in Nigerian languages”, in Owolabi, K. (ed.), Language in Nigeria, Ibadan, 1995, 471–73.Google Scholar

55 See n. 32.

56 A Lagos State parliamentarian was reported saying: “In my view, what remains to be done is to appeal to my honourable colleagues to use die popular language which is English” (as against Yoruba). C.M.B. Brann “Language Choice in Nigerian State House of Assembly”, paper delivered at die conference of the Nigerian Association of Translators and Interpreters (NATI), Lagos, 6 July, 1981, p. 9.

57 Afolayan, op.cit, 183.

58 Brann, , History of European Ideas, 108.Google Scholar

59 Verdoodt, A., “Regional and minority languages in West Europe”Google Scholar, in ibid., 67–71.

60 Bamgbose, “African languages and national development”, 14.

61 Amonoo, R.F., Language and Nationhood: Reflections on Language Situations with particular reference to Ghana, J.B. Danquah Memorial Lectures, Series No. 19, Accra, 1989, 46.Google Scholar

62 Ibid., 52.

63 Afolayan, op. cit., 188.

64 Brann, , History of European Ideas, 109.Google Scholar

65 Mazrui, A.A., Ancient Greece in African Political Thought, East Africa, 1967, 2930, 32.Google Scholar

66 Greig, D.W., International Law, 2nd ed., London, 1976, 476.Google Scholar

67 The Guardian (Lagos), 11 June, 1994, 23. The review is on Dapo Adeniyi’s translation of Fafunwa’s Yoruba work Irinkerindo Ninu Igbo Elegbeje (Expedition to the Mount of Thought). Orukutindi tindi, a Yoruba onomatopoetic expression, appears untranslatable into English; if translated, the effect would be lost.Google Scholar

68 Hilf, op. cit, 23.

69 The Ebira and Yoruba are contiguous ethnic neighbours in Nigerja. A word in one language meaning the direct opposite in the other is a sociolinguistic phenomenon. On Nigerian languages, see generally,Crozier, D.H.Blench, R.M. (eds.), An Index of Mgerian Languages, 2nd ed., Dallas, 1992.Google Scholar

70 Hilf, op. cit., 22; Butler, op. cit, 65. Here some “celebrated instances of textual discrepancies in international treaties” are cited.

71 Cited in Harris, D.J., Cases and Materials on International Law, 4th ed., London, 1991, 777.Google Scholar

73 Amonoo, op. cit., 54.

74 P.F., Gonidec, Relations Internationales africaines, Publisud, 1993.Google Scholar

75 Mazrui, A.A., Africa’s International Relations, London, 1984, 290Google Scholar; see also Butler, W.E.: “many regard international law of the ‘recent past’, say from either the Peace of Westphalia or the Congress of Vienna to the mid-1950s, as Euro-centric”, op. cit, 59.Google Scholar

76 Mazrui op. cit., 291; Mazrui’s message can be compared with that of Anver Versi who said: “African leaders … have failed to address themselves to the quest for a modern African philosophy that sees the nation state as a crucible for the formation of a totally emancipated African personality. Until such a philosophy is found, and until new instruments of social and pohtical organisations are created to implement this philosophy, African states will continue to languish in the wash of European civilisation.” Wright, S. & Brownfoot, J.N. (eds.), Africa in World Politics London, 1987, 119CrossRefGoogle Scholar