The division of state inhabitants into communities living under different laws opens up possibilities of conflicts problems on an unprecedented scale. These problems may arise not only when members of different communities enter into legal relationships, but also when the parties, whether members of the same community or not, choose to regulate their legal relations in accordance with another personal law. The occurrence of either of these circumstances poses some problems for which the law is difficult or uncertain. This study attempts to examine with particular reference to the Sudan the problem of choice of law to be administered.

In examining the problem of choice of law I shall attempt to show and compare how different systems of personal laws (i.e., where personal laws are administered in their respective courts of nationality, religion or ethnic community and courts which administer two or more personal laws) try to solve choice of law problems. It is apparent that the existence of the lex fori in the former and its absence in the latter should affect the approach to the problem of choice of law. The contrast between the two approaches is striking. The contention here is that systems of personal laws always apply their lex fori and treat questions of choice of law as mere questions of competence.

The Republic of the Sudan, the largest country in Africa with a population of approximately 22 million people, became an independent state on 1 January 1956. The “May regime” of former President Ga'afar Mohamed Nimeiri ruled the Sudan during sixteen years of Sudan's independent existence, from 25 May 1969 to 6 April, 1985. Since April 1985, the country has been in a “transitional” period leading up to elections in April 1986, after which a newly elected government will determine the future of the state. Although Nimeiri is gone, the issue of the retention of the policies and legal structures of his regime continues to dominate the political and economic scene of this country.

The economic development of the Sudan, along with the question of the correct balance of central-regional power within the country, constitute two of the major subjects of governmental attention and current political debate. The legal structures put in place by the Nimeiri government with respect to these matters remain largely intact. In order to undertake effective changes in the financial and structural policies of the government, an essential first step is to understand the framework which has existed in the recent past from which such changes will be made.

Land plays a very important role in the lives of many people in most developing countries, and particularly in Africa, where subsistence agriculture is still widely practised. Accordingly, the nature of land administration can either influence or impede development. Land administration in many African countries, since independence, has been carried out through a policy of over-centralization. This has often resulted in administrative and bureaucratic bottlenecks which have hampered the effective distribution and utilization of land resources. Botswana, on the other hand, has avoided this common pitfall. Its system of land administration has been based on a policy of decentralization. One such area is in the field of tribal lands administered under the Tribal Land Act, which is the subject of discussion in this paper.