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Title: | Historicizing and contextualizing the discourse on African international law and a concise overview of the pacific settlement of the Cameroon-Nigeria Bakassi Peninsula dispute |
Author: | Udogu, E. Ike |
Year: | 2008 |
Periodical: | African and Asian Studies |
Volume: | 7 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 77-99 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Cameroon Nigeria |
Subjects: | boundary conflicts international law arbitration OAU International Court of Justice |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1163/156921008X279316 |
Abstract: | For the past 50 years or so, the media and intellectual discourses on African politics have generally portrayed the continent as being in perpetual turmoil. The causes of such conflicts have been related, but not limited, to the outcome of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 in which some of the European powers carved up the region in a zigzag fashion with little or no concern for the ethnic complexions of the societies involved. The result of this policy in postcolonial and independent Africa has been disastrous for much of the continent, with numerous civil wars and cross-border clashes between African States. The use of armed struggle to resolve border conflicts is now seen as counterproductive to the vision of African unity and transformation in the millennium, as first articulated by the Organization of African Unity and now championed by the African Union - the successor to the OAU. This study highlights the extent to which African States are increasingly relying on international law, the AU and the good offices of the UN and its various agencies to resolve international boundary conflicts. It also historicizes the development of international law in Africa and discusses as a case study and model for Africa the pacific settlement of the border dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria over the Bakassi Peninsula. Bibliogr., sum. [Journal abstract] |