Before the establishment of British judicial institutions in Nigeria, disputes were settled through the machinery of indigenous traditional tribunals. The character of these varied from one area of the country to another. In the Eastern part of the country, the machinery of justice was rudimentary and in no sense institutionalised. The strong tradition of chieftaincy which existed in the North and West enabled these areas to possess fairly well organised traditional tribunals. From 1898 the government of the Niger Coast Protectorate, in agreement with the local communities, began to create systematised native courts. These courts were purely administrative creations which were neither established nor controlled by statute. In 1900, the Grown took over from the Niger Company and by the Native Courts Proclamation established native courts on a statutory basis in the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The system of native courts created by this enactment was modified in subsequent years. In 1948 the Brooke Commission of Enquiry was appointed for the Northern, the Eastern, the Western Provinces and for the Colony to review the operation and jurisdiction of the native courts in the various parts of Nigeria. With the introduction of the federal system of government in Nigeria in 1954, the native courts became a residuary matter on which Regional Legislatures alone could legislate. In the subsequent statutes on this matter, the Eastern and Western Regions adopted the new title “customary court” while the Northern Region retained the old title of native court.

This paper has attempted to bring out the essentials of a larger study of Sudanese homicide. This is the first study of homicide and major crime in the Sudan which embraces the many diverse ethnic groups that constitute the Sudanese population. It is the first time that so many cases have been analysed for the purpose of disclosing sociological patterns of killing and violence in Sudanese society. Such studies are rare for African countries and practically non-existent for the Arab countries. The Sudan's unique position, straddling both the Arab and African worlds, make this study in part both a study of African homicide and of homicide in the Middle East.

The Mbeere of Central Kenya have recently been the focus of a programme of land adjudication and registration. Since the early 1960s when the Mbeere anticipated that they too would undergo the land reform process that had been applied elsewhere in Kenya, much of their attention has been riveted to the question of land tenure change. The new mode of holding land promises security of tenure through a registered title, significantly reduced land litigation, and rural development through agricultural loans for which titled land will stand as collateral. Ironically, the implementation of national land legislation has created great insecurity since it has set in motion an unprecedented amount of litigation.

The law relating to death duties for Swaziland is contained in the provisions of the Death Duties Proclamation of 1942 (now reproduced in the Revised Edition of the Laws as the Death Duties Act).

Some African countries are members of either the Berne Convention or the Universal Copyright Convention. Some belong to both. Membership of these conventions confers certain rights and obligations. One of the obligations is that local conditions must be favourable for the implementation of provisions of the international conventions. By this arrangement it is expected that national copyright laws must not be inconsistent with the international copyright conventions ot which the countries concerned are members.

The sole issue of importance in this case was the choice of law for determining entitlement to the estate. The most remarkable of the court's holdings is the proposition that Moslem law governs the estate of an intestate Moslem because it is the customary law to which he was subject. Before discussing this it is necessary to examine the line of reasoning by which it was reached.