Independent Africa: The Challenge to the Legal Profession

L. C. B. Gower

Published by Harvard University Press 1967

Independent Africa

The Challenge to the Legal Profession

L. C. B. Gower

In the series The Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674492400

Overview
Contents

About this book

"My intention [is] to provide a frank criticism of the British colonial legacies to countries which I have come to love and admire and a sincere unsycophantic tribute to those who are now struggling with the problems flowing from these legacies."

In this book, an expanded version of The Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures he delivered at Harvard University in 1966, Mr. Gower first looks at some of the legacies of colonialism inherited by those nations of Tropical Africa which recently gained independence from Britain: Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. These various legacies include arbitrary national boundaries imposed long before independence; British-style education, government, civil service, military forces, and police; respect for the rule of law (and a residual contempt for it as a result of colonial associations); underdeveloped and unbalanced economies; hostility toward the West, including American "dollar-imperialism," and a hypersensitivity to criticism from that quarter.

Mr. Gower continues with an assessment of what has happened to these legacies since independence and what seems likely to happen to them in the next few decades. His central concern is the challenge thus implied for the indigenous legal professions, but his study has far wider implications.

In conclusion Mr. Gower describes how the legal professions were organized at the time of independence in the various countries and what progress has been made in producing the kinds of lawyers needed to solve the urgent problems these countries face. He suggests what the United States can and should-and occasionally what it should not-do to help.

Author / Editor information

Gower L. C. B. :

L. C. B. Gower, formerly Cassel Professor of Commercial Law in the University of London, has been associated with the reform of law and of legal training and organization in a number of African countries. From 1962 to 1965 he was Adviser on Legal Education in Africa to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, Adviser to the Nigerian Council of Legal Education, and Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lagos

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	v
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
I. Pre-Independence : The Colonial Legacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
II. Post-Independence: Husbanding or Squandering the Inheritance? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
III. The Legal Profession Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Copyright year: 1967
Edition: Reprint 2014
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 154
Keywords: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies; POLITICAL SCIENCE / General; Lawyers -- Africa.; Law -- Africa.; Africa -- Politics and government.

eBook

Published: April 7, 2014
ISBN: 9780674492400

Hardcover

Published: February 5, 1967
ISBN: 9780674492394