Company law needs to be reformed so as to promote and maintain the protection of the interests of shareholders, creditors and the community. These are the three “social and economic needs to which a system of company law should respond”. These three purposes of company law are not mutually exclusive. However, the weighting of them depends on the space factor and time factor of law reform. Space factor refers to the differences in economic, social, political and other conditions and needs between one country and another at a given time. So, “Whereas in Britain one of the main purposes of company legislation is to protect the interests of shareholders, in a developing country like Malawi its main function should be to protect the interests of the national economy since most of the effective shareholders will in fact be non-resident in the country.” Time factor refers to the differences in economic, social, political and other conditions and needs of a country between one time and another. For example, the increasing internationalisation of the Malawian political economy, through branches and subsidiaries of multinational companies and joint-ventures, may demand that companies’ legislation in Malawi respond to the conditions and needs of such an economy. Of course, the two factors constantly act on each other.

Nigeria was under military rule from 1966 to 1979, and from December 1983 to date; it had a short civilian interregnum from 1979 to 1983 during the era of President Shehu Shagari.

This rather long period of military administration in Nigeria brought along with it changes in the scope of substantive criminal law as well as procedural changes. This can be partly explained on the ground that the criminal law must react and adjust to societal changes and formulate its own rules to combat them. However, an assessment of the attitude of the military to criminal law might suggest that certain fundamental rules have been sacrificed for despatch.

This article is an attempt to highlight the contribution of the military administrations to the development and scope of criminal law in Nigeria. The approach is to examine the various important criminal law enactments of the military era with a view to see their impact, if any, on the hitherto existing rules and system of criminal law.

The Land Use Act, 1978 (hereinafter referred to, where the context admits, as “the Act”) introduced a uniform State ownership of land otherwise known as the Rights of Occupancy System in Nigeria. Section 1 of the Act vests all land within the territory of each State in the Federation in the Governor of the State to hold upon trust for the use and common benefit of all Nigerians. Section 5 empowers the Governor in respect of land whether or not in an urban area to grant a Statutory Right of Occupancy to any person for all purposes, while Section 6 empowers the Local Government, where appropriate, in respect of land in a non-urban area to grant a Customary Right of Occupancy to any person. By Sections 34 and 36 former owners of land become deemed holders of rights of occupancy into which their former ownership rights have been transformed by operation of law.

The Act continues to attract comments from learned writers as to its effect on various aspects of property law. However, it would appear that not many writers have focused particularly on the effect of the Act on the law of mortgages. This is not to say that the subject is not important, nor that the Act has not significantly affected the law and practice of mortgages. The object of this article is to fill this vacuum.

A country's water resources are important not only for the continued well-being of its population but also because water is a critical element in its economic development. Water is vital for human, animal and plant life. Life cannot exist without it. Most domestic needs in developing countries are satisfied through direct access to natural sources. The World Health Organisation in 1976 estimated that only 38 per cent of the total population in developing countries had access to safe water supplies. This means that 62 per cent of the population resorted to lakes, rivers, streams and wells for domestic requirements. Many industries abstract water from rivers and lakes for their industrial processes and often return it to those sources as trade effluents. Water is a critical factor in agricultural production. In turn agricultural activities create by-products such as sediment loads and chemical residues with adverse impact on water quality.

It is obvious therefore that a country must ensure that its water resources are rationally utilised and managed. Such utilisation and management entails the creation of normative and institutional structures, first, to regulate the allocation of an often scarce resource to competing legitimate demands and, secondly, to anticipate, prevent and control the adverse consequences of resources utilisation. This article examines the nature of the legal mechanisms instituted by selected African countries, viz. Zambia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sudan and Kenya, for the control and prevention of water pollution. The objective is two-fold: first, to determine the adequacy of existing legal regimes and, secondly, to suggest how deficiencies in existing frameworks may be rectified.

A victim of crime is any person who is hurt physically, mentally, financially, or economically as a result of criminal conduct. He may sustain permanent physical or mental incapacitation as a result of such conduct. His health may be impaired. His property may be permanently lost, destroyed, or damaged. His reputation in society may be irreparably damaged. His business or professional interests may be ruined. His social standing may be shattered, and this is especially true of victims of sexual offences. His family's welfare may also be dealt a heavy blow, and this is especially so where he or she dies or where his or her ability to support them is diminished or totally extinguished. For the most part, the victim is innocent, going about his activities lawfully and peacefully.

An indication of the reluctance of some African states to submit to international arbitration when investment disputes arise under investment contracts providing for international arbitration of disputes is to be found in their insistence that such disputes should be settled by their national courts. For instance, Article 35 of the Oil Code of Madagascar provides for the exclusive jurisdiction of the Madagascar Courts in respect of disputes arising under the Code. In the Libyan Nationalisation Cases, Libya was insistent that only its national courts could settle the arbitrations. In the Holiday Inns Arbitration and the case of Société Ltd., Benvenuti & Bonfant, the Moroccan and Congolese Governments respectively contended that only their national courts could settle certain aspects of the investment disputes they were parties to. This article considers the extent to which this insistence is reflected in investment contracts and the suitability of African courts for settling investment disputes and enforcing awards.

Evidentiary rules applicable to rape and other sexual offence cases, inherited from nineteenth-century England and based on Victorian notions of women's behaviour, are alive and well in twentieth-century southern Africa. These are the cautionary rules which require a trial judge to warn him or herself of the danger of convicting a rape accused without corroboration, or independent evidence supporting the testimony of the complainant. These rules are applied because the evidence of the complainant in a sexual case is considered to be “suspect”: she is variously said to be prone to lie for reasons of her own, prone to fantasy, and prone to exaggerate. Although the cautionary rule of corroboration is still applied in many countries, most progressive and feminist thinkers consider them to be “a lingering insult to women”. In this article I will canvass the cautionary rules on evidence in sexual cases in southern Africa and attempt to show that they are not only based on outmoded stereotypes, but are also particularly unsuitable to southern Africa.

The subject “Rent Control” is very wide as it covers many areas. It may deal with the control of rents in respect of agricultural land, industrial property or it may be limited either to dwelling houses or commercial buildings. For the purposes of this paper, “rent control” focuses on the dwelling or residential houses and commercial buildings in the country. The obvious reason is that the current rent control legislation is limited to those properties because of the apparent high level of the rents they attract.

The use of legislation to control rents of premises is a product of the twentieth century. In England, for instance, the first attempt to control rents was in 1915, during the First World War. It is interesting to note that the first legislation on rent control in England coincided with the outbreak of the First World War. Rent controls in Nigeria and Ghana were also influenced by the First and Second World Wars respectively. The reason for the introduction of rent control legislation to coincide with world wars is not hard to find. Wars generally create shortages of a number of essential goods because many resources are diverted to the production of armaments and the labour force is channelled to the battle front. Housing is one of the needs of mankind which usually becomes scarce as a result of the outbreak of a major war like the last two World Wars.

Informed opinions on the judiciary in Nigeria vary between the rather equivocal comment by a senior member of the bar that “The judiciary is dead”, or the view that it is “on trial” and the more compassionate view that it is a “beast of burden” or a “sacrificial lamb”. These remarks derive from observations of the (alleged or actual) behaviour of the judges, and their independence, impartiality and integrity. While the metaphors quoted above may be subject to various interpretations, they do raise considerable curiosity and interest as to why any judiciary should attract such comments, and perhaps to what extent the comments are justified. This article, in attempting to answer these and similar nagging questions concerning Nigeria's judiciary, examines the truly multi-faceted question of judicial independence by assessing the Nigerian situation in the light of the factors that are considered vital to ensuring or guaranteeing an independent judiciary.

Interestingly, although section 17(1)(e) of the Nigerian Constitution provides that “The independence, impartiality and integrity of Courts of Law, and easy accessibility thereto shall be secured and maintained”, this provision is under the chapter titled “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy”, whose provisions are non-justiciable by virtue of section 6(6) (c) of the Constitution. Thus the high-sounding declaration of section 17(1)(e) has no bite, and what could have been a constitutional guarantee of judicial independence is no more than a slogan.

A pledge is a customary law transaction where the pledgor (borrower) surrenders possession of his property to the pledgee (creditor) “to hold and use until the debt due is paid, an article borrowed is returned or replaced, or obligation is discharged”. Like other customary transactions, pledges have not remained static: social and economic changes in Ghana as well as statutory intervention (which in itself is generally the result of such changes) have contributed to their development. In some respects, pledges are similar to the common law transaction known as mortgages but there are essential differences between the two. However, now the same law would seem to govern both transactions because by virtue of the Mortgages (Amendment) Decree, 1979 (A.F.R.C.D. 37):

Every customary loan transaction in respect of which any farm-land is given

There is no doubt that the investment climate in every country is conditioned to a great extent by non-legal factors. Nevertheless, many developing countries have, to varying degrees, relied on legislation as a means of attracting foreign investment. When Cameroon attained independence in 1960, it enacted an Investment Code that same year with the aim of attracting investment which the young state needed so much for the realisation of its development objectives. When after two decades the said Code no longer responded to the needs of the state, a new one was instituted on 4 July, 1984. The common feature of Investment Codes is that they contain various incentives aimed at channelling investments to areas which the authors regard as top priority. In this article, an attempt will be made to show to what extent the Cameroonian government has succeeded in its effort to direct investments to desired regions of the country through a statute wherein incentives cohabit with regulations on matters such as imports, exports, price fixing, foreign exchange, etc., which foreign investors consider as repellent. The study is subdivided into two parts. The first part is based on the Investment Codes and the second deals with the country's regulatory environment.

The outbreak of further hostilities between Chad and Libya in August 1987 was occasioned by a dispute concerning sovereignty over the so-called Aouzou Strip in northern Chad. The extent of Libyan involvement in Chad is motivated to a large degree by this territorial claim. This dispute must be distinguished from Libya's wider ambitions for Arab unity or its involvement in Chad's civil war, although it would appear true to say that Libya was thereby seeking to consolidate its hold on the Aouzou Strip. Documentary evidence exists to support the contention that a genuine territorial claim exists. In addition, it is interesting to note that, while Libya appeared to have resigned itself to the victory of President Habre's forces in the civil war and the defeat and expulsion of its forces from the rest of Chad in the early part of 1987, the capture of Aouzou by Habre's forces in August 1987 resulted in an ongoing military response brought to a tentative conclusion in September 1987 by the OAU. Colonel Gadafi has been reported as saying that, if Chad ceded the Aouzou Strip, he would regard the war as over and would never again interfere in Chad's internal affairs. Moreover, Colonel Gadafi's support for the rival factions in Chad has wavered according to their position on the question of the Aouzou Strip. The purpose of this short article is to analyse Libya's territorial claim to the disputed territory.

Legal education in Africa has attracted and will continue to attract the attention of scholars. An important reason is that African countries have enjoyed sovereign statehood for only a comparably short time, during which period transition, experiment, change, and even turmoil, have been the hallmark of society: all factors which must have a profound impact on received law (and, of course, on the primeval law), if this law is to serve effectively as a regulatory and stabilising device. This law, in its received cast, is thrown into a dilemma of turbulence; will it serve in wonted fashion, to give regularity, predictability, and a measure of reason? Or will it readily respond to inevitable change, so as to uphold new institutional positions? As President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia has observed:

“We live in a changing world, and one in which the pace of change is becoming even greater. Neither the character nor the needs of any given society can remain static, and if the law is to fulfil its proper function it must keep pace with the changes. This is not to say that the law must be a straw in the wind; if law is to be an effective instrument of social order it must be a stabilising influence, but it must be flexible and it must be progressive, else it will hinder society in its progress and development. …”

In recent times, compensation arising from oil spills has assumed a significant role in the Nigerian oil industry. The significance stems from the fact that, with petroleum operations spillage is inevitable. Oil spills have various effects on the health of the populace as well as the economic and scenic value of the environment. Thus there is the need to minimise the effect of the occurrence of oil spill. One way of achieving this objective is through compensation. The essence of compensation is to make amends for the loss suffered by the victims. In making these amends, the loss experienced by the victim must be recompensed otherwise the compensation cannot be said to be adequate or equivalent to the compulsory sacrifice.

Victims of oil spill have claimed that the compensation paid to them is unreasonable and cannot be said to be recompense for their loss. Oil companies on the other hand claim that the compensation paid to the victims is adequate and that they operate within the parameter approved by the Inspectorate Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation or the State Ministry of Lands. Apart from this, many claims made by the communities are not honoured by the oil companies on the grounds that they are spurious and speculative. Even when the claims are genuine the oil companies may not pay if the spillage occurred as a result of acts of sabotage.

At national as well as international level the South African Freedom Charter has become a symbol of the long-standing struggle against apartheid. In this essay the emphasis will be on the charter's provisions relating to ethnicity. The question of ethnicity is a crucial one, for on its solution depends the outcome of the economic and other social problems which trouble South African society.

The 1955 Freedom Charter, which was the outcome of a joint venture of the African National Congress (A.N.C.), the South African Indian Congress, the South African Coloured People's Organisation and the predominantly European South African Congress of Democrats, suggests a unitary, participatory welfare state, which will acccord equal rights to all “national groups and races”.

For the A.N.C., the senior partner in the “Congress Alliance”, the reference in the charter to “national groups and races” soon became a major headache. Could it be said that the charter lent support to the creation of “four nations”? A number of people within the A.N.C. feared that much. Prominent among them were the “Africanists” who in April 1959 broke away from the A.N.C, and formed the Pan-Africanist Congress (P.A.C.) “Charterists” and “Africanists” are still at loggerheads, but the A.N.C.'s “Revolutionary Programme” of 1969 and its “Constitutional Guidelines for a Democratic

After conducting research into the customary law of succession and considering the various arguments for and against reforming succession law, in 1982 the Law Development Commission published a report which favoured reform and which contained a draft bill dealing with testate and intestate succession, and with family provision. Now two laws have been enacted, the one governing wills and the administration of testate estates, the other governing intestacy and the administration of intestate estates. Although there are obvious similarities between the draft bill and the new laws, there are also significant differences. It is not only that the draft bill did not deal with the administration of estates, but that several of its key provisions relating to wills and intestacy have been modified or abandoned.