State Law and Local Law in Sub-Saharan Africa

‘Nous n’avons pas eu la préoccupation, en Ethiopie, d'élaborer un Code qui soit fondé sur les coutumes éthiopiennes’René David, drafter of the Ethiopian civil Code, 1962. When between 1957 and 1965 the major body of present Ethiopian law was enacted, the principal aim was to achieve a modernization of the legal system. Although the country knew a great variety of local legal traditions, the new legislation was almost exclusively inspired by western conceptions of law. Rather than to reflect s..