Africa

Association of African Law Library and Information Professionals

The Association of African Law Library and Information Professionals connects African legal information professionals and legal information institutions across Africa. Their aim is to support legal research and promote legal information awareness across the continent by building up a network of individual and institutional members. The website contains information about the association and their aims, membership information and a blog with the latest news about AfLLIP, as well as the latest developments in legal information across Africa.

ECOWAS Law

Law section of the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) website, focusing on the Treaty of Lagos, 1975, which established this 15-member regional group, and other official documents. The purpose of ECOWAS is to promote economic integration in the region and create an economic and trading union. A revised 1993 version of the Treaty of Lagos is provided, along with regulations, communiques, decisions and other ECOWAS official documents.

OHADA: Organization for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa

This is the official website of OHADA. The main part of the site provides the OHADA Treaty and OHADA uniform acts in English and French; it also has recent cases from the Cour Commune de Justice et d’Arbitrage and legal commentary (‘Doctrine’), but these are in French only. A larger repository of OHADA documentation can be found in the Digital Library: all issues of the OHADA Journal Officiel (Official Gazette), cases from 2010 onwards, uniform acts and other material, all in French.

African Legal Information Institute

The African Legal Information Institute (AfricanLII) makes available treaties, cases, resolutions, decisions, reports and other publications of African regional organisations. It also provides access to legislation and cases from 16 African countries, via its search facility. The home page has links to regional and national African websites. AfricanLII is a project of the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit (DGRU) at the University of Cape Town law faculty.

African Online Library on Law and Governance

Large free collection of African law materials, including constitutions, legislation, treaties, court decisions, journal articles and some books, together with a news service and networking opportunities. Registration is required, but there is no charge. The Library can be browsed by country, organisation, or journal title, and there are simple and advanced search facilities. For each country, there is a brief description of the legal system, a list of intergovernmental organisations in which it participates and other information.

SOAS Library

Website of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Library at the University of London, providing information about collections, services and facilities. Has a link to the Library Catalogue; a list of databases; details of e-books and e-journals; and the SOAS Archive Catalogue. There is a Subject Guide for the law collection, which includes a page of information by country or region covering Africa, China, Europe, International Law, Japan and Korea, the Middle East and Central Asia, South Asia, South-East Asia and the UK.

African Legislatures Project

The African Legislatures Project (ALP) is based at the Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town, South Africa. The project conducts research into the way that the legislatures function. English is the main language but the introductory article in PDF which gives the background to the project is also available in French and Portuguese. Full-text access is given free of charge to a variety of Country Reports, Working Papers, text of Constitutions of the countries covered and Conference Papers.

African Human Rights Case Law Analyser: collection of decisions from the African human rights system

Free web database of over 200 decisions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACmHPR). There are also cases from other African human rights bodies including ECOWAS Community Court of Justice and the East African Court of Justice. Launched in November 2010, it is a joint project of the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) and Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems (HURIDOCS).

Introduction to the Law of the Southern African Development Community

Online guide to the law of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) written by Dunia P. Zongwe who is a former graduate fellow of the Institute for African Development at Cornell University. The guide was published in 2011 (and updated in 2023) on the Globalex website and made freely available by the Hauser Global Law School Program at the New York University School of Law. The author gives background and historical information to SADC which is a regional economic community composed of 15 countries in Southern Africa.

African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights

Official website of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights which was established by a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights in1998. The African Court is based in Tanzania and started work in 2006. It has jurisdiction over all cases submitted to it regarding the interpretation and application of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and deals with human rights violations perpetrated by African Union Member States. The site has profiles of judges and information on the history and role of the Court.

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