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This thesis is a study of the constitution making processes in Nigeria from the colonial inception to the 1989 Constitution which is scheduled to usher in a putative third republic. Although apparently covering a wide scope, its boundary is limited by its perspective. Constitution making in any polity is essentially a political process where all the major, relevant and active interests seek to protect and advance themselves. Consequently, the focus of the research is on determining these competing interests, their interactions, compromises, winners and losers, etc. Attempts were made to provide the criteria for class identification in Nigeria to serve as a guide for determining class based action. The value of the work is threefold. First, it makes a modest but important contribution to an ongoing debate on whether or not Nigeria's post independence constitutional processes in particular were grounded in class interest, in the tradition of Charles Beard's interpretation of the constitution of the U.S.A. Second, it disputes and in large measure seeks to contradict some of the earlier widely held assumptions and assertions regarding the making of some of the constitutions, especially the Macpherson Constitution, 1951.Finally, it attempts to provide a complete and realistic account of the constitutional evolution of Nigeria less the military rule, from its inception as a country up to 1989. The method of investigation was largely analytical using official records, official reports, communications of key officials, biographical data, etc. Theoretical guidance was significantly drawn from political economy writings in politics, history and law. Eventually, the analysis revealed the existence and interplay of important interest configurations, reducing class to a subtle rather than an obvious phenomenon in the constitutional process. But overwhelmingly, the entire process was elitist and self serving with the mainstream of the population left in the margin in the composition of the constitutional bodies, the setting of agenda and the institutions and mechanisms established for governing the country. Finally, it found that there was a great deal of continuity of the values and institutions established for colonial ends with little or no will manifested in the constitutional process to break with the past. Rather what transpired was an expansion of institutions and creation of formulae in the constitution to accommodate a new breed of elites who were able to manipulate potential cleavages in the society to serve personal ends.

In the aftermath of a wave of land law reforms across Africa, this thesis seeks to reorientate current debates on women's land rights towards a focus on the law in action. Since the 1970s Tanzania has been at the forefront of African countries giving statutory recognition to women's property rights and ‘equal rights' to land. Equally, ‘customary law' incorporating gender discriminatory social practices is recognised as a source of law in Tanzania's plural legal system. Centring on disputes involving women litigants in Tanzania's specialist system of land courts, this study considers the extent to which women are realising their interests in land through legal processes of dispute resolution. The starting-point for the analysis is the legal claims to land which women bring and defend themselves against in practice. The study draws upon a year of ethnographic fieldwork, including courtroom observation, archival research and interviews conducted between January 2009 and January 2010, with particular focus on two districts of Arusha region. The thesis is structured to reflect the progression of women's claims to land, from their social origins through processes of dispute resolution to judgment. The thesis explores three central issues. Firstly, it considers the nature of women's legal claims to land in family contexts, how and to what extent the issues raised are addressed by Tanzania's contemporary statutory legal framework. Secondly, it examines how agency and power relations between actors engaged in the ‘semiautonomous social field' of land courts affect women's access to justice and the progression of claims. Thirdly, it evaluates the process of doing justice and the way in which women's claims are judged by land courts in practice. Particular attention is paid to how customary practices and judicial attitudes to female land-holding are evolving with contemporary Tanzanian discourses of justice and equal rights.

This is a socio-legal study of widowhood among the Baganda of Uganda. The thesis explores widowhood as it affects women within their local cultural context to determine the extent to which they pursue their rights in property and other family relationships. The thesis takes the position that to see them as ‘passive victims’ is to deny them a ‘voice.’ It homogenises them denying them their individuality. To this end the thesis explores the activities individual women undertake to pursue their interests. The study examines their perceptions of their situations as narrated through their own voices and what they have done or are doing about the situation. Widowhood flows from death in a marriage relationship. Consequently, the thesis begins with a woman entering into marriage, exploring how she is conceptualised through the giving of marriage gifts/bridewealth and the consequences that flow from that in a marriage relationship and its implications for widowhood. The study argues that there is need to understand the local cultural context in which women live and that within this context there are several regulatory regimes/semi autonomous social fields that regulate the society. This includes customs and cultural practices, the imported western law and in recent years the Resistance Councils which were created by the State to encourage democratic participation and popular justice beginning at grassroots. None of these regimes are autonomous from the other although each seeks to exert its own power. This has far reaching consequences for the extent to which a woman can assert herself. Within this the ‘family council’ or clan to which every person in that society belongs emerges as the strongest regulatory regime. The study reveals that the choice of regimes allows a woman to pick and choose where to assert her rights depending on her interests, location and resource position. Within these set of circumstances her self perception as an individual with rights is the strongest tool in driving her to pursue her interests. The study also reveals that in some cases the written imported law supports cultural practices but because it is perceived as foreign, there has not been openess nor understanding of the substance of the law thus resulting in conflicts with customary practices. This is most evident in rural societies where cultural practices find their strongest means of expression. However there is room for harmony where the law does not seek to impose itself on other regulatory regimes but recognizes the need for sharing of powers and working in cooperation with these other regimes. In this respect the creation of the RC system which encourages local informal dispute resolution and which has the capacity to respond to social factors and changing attitudes within the community and the wider legal system can be an effective tool for legal innovation and draw the women as a whole into decision making.

This is a study of some of the major aspects of the development of post-colonial labour policy in Zambia. It examines the Zambian Government's attempts to 'incorporate' trade unions into its strategy of national development. Except for such later references as it was possible to include, it covers the period from 1971 to 1986. The purpose of the study is to examine the role played by law in the Zambian Government's attempts to incorporate trade unions and the rank and file sufficiently in the plans for national development. Zambian trade unions at independence were quite autonomous. Given the power and autonomy of trade unions, their attitude and approach have been viewed by the Government as crucial elements of national development. The Government has, therefore, progressively adopted measures aimed at the closer control and regulation of the trade union movement and its membership. In spite of such attempts, however, the approach in Zambia has been less coercive than in some other African countries. The Government has tended to rely on "pressure rather than force". In this context government reforms are examined in four key areas: the regulation of trade union activity, the restructuring of collective bargaining (including incomes policy), industrial conflict and dispute settlement procedures, and workers' participation. It is concluded that the Government has not achieved its stated major objectives. Although trade unions and their members have generally accepted the Government's overall authority to set the agenda of national development, they have resisted attempts to curtail their autonomy. It is on account of this failure that the Government now intends to integrate trade unions into the State completely.

Within the past decade, there has been considerable debate amongst lawyers in most European and North American jurisdictions on standardized contracts. The realisation that these contracts did not fit into the framework of the law of contract elaborated by nineteenth-centry theorists, induced judges and academic alike to fashion concepts and mechanisms in order to tackle the undoubted injustices which were concomitant with the use of standardized contracts. These well meaning attemtps, while affording some protection to weaker contracting parties, were nevertheless productive of uncertainty and inconsistency. Hence, there has been in recent years a spate of legislation designed to deal with standardized contracts directly or indirectly. The adoption of modern economic institutions and also of Western legal systems in Cameroon has brought about significant problems in the realm of contract. The widespread illiteracy in Cameroon, the lack of commercial sophistication of the bulk of the populace, and the use of standardized contracts, have created problems of a much wider dimension than those to be found in the developed countries. This thesis involves a study in comparative law. It charts the ways in which the English and French courts have addressed the problems of standardized contracts. It also delves into how the Cameroonian courts have dealt with them, revealing the incongruities inherent in the application of concepts which have been evolved in a different country with distinct motives, in another country with entirely different social realities. Finally, this thesis looks at the legislative innovation; brought to this area of the law by four European countries and discerns what lessons can be learned from them by Cameroonian legislators in dealing with the problems of standardized contracts in Cameroon. All this is achieved by pulling together legal analysis and comments by Anglo-Americans and European scholars, and by weaving into the text nearly all important English, French, Cameroonian and indeed American cases on this subject.