'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

... The Court essentially concludes that international custom requires that international(ized) tribunals try international crimes, whereas national courts can have jurisdiction only if such crimes had already been incorporated into national law when they were committed.
The assertion of such a custom is difficult to harmonize with a whole range of cases in which national courts have retroactively asserted jurisdiction over international crimes. ...

-- Jan Arno Hessbruegge, who works as a legal advisor for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a personal-capacity ASIL Insight on the November 2010 judgment of the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Union of West African States in Hissein Habré c. République du Sénégal. We've posted here, here, and here about the court of ECOWAS, a regional organization whose members include not only Senegal, but also Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Hessbruegge's Insight is skeptical about the reasoning of the ECOWAS Court in this case. And he rightly points out that it raises the potential for conflicting judgments in cases involving former Chadian dictator Habré -- not necessarily the 2009 decision of the African Court of Human and People's Rights about which we've posted, but rather the eventual judgment in Questions relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Belgium v. Senegal), pending before the International Court of Justice. (credit for © 2005 Madjiasra Nako/IRIN photo of "[w]idows protest[ing] in the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, demanding the extradition of Hissène Habré to Belgium to face charges of crimes against humanity")

Guest Blogger: Claire Moore Dickerson

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Claire Moore Dickerson (left) as today's guest blogger.
Claire is the Senator John B. Breaux Professor of Business Law at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, Lousiana, and also a permanent visiting professor at the University of Buea in Cameroon. She has conducted considerable research in that country and elsewhere in Africa, especially the Ivory Coast and Senegal. Her scholarship -- including the co-authored Unified Business Laws for Africa (2009) -- is noted for its application of socioeconomic principles to business-related areas and for its focus on the intersection of commerce and human rights.
In her guest post below, Claire discusses her article, forthcoming next January in the American Journal of Comparative Law; it examines business law and informal-sector entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Claire teaches Business Enterprises, International Business Transactions, Contracts, and a Comparative Corporate Governance Seminar. She came to Tulane from Rutgers University School of Law, Newark, New Jersey, where she was Professor of Law, Dickson Scholar, Schuchman Fellow, Co-Director of the Global Legal Studies program, and holder of the Visiting Lowenstein Chair. She also taught at the law school as St. John's University.
She holds an A.B. magna cum laude from Wellesley College, a J.D. from Columbia University, where she was a Stone Scholar, and an LL.M. in Taxation from New York University. Before entering law teaching she was a partner at the New York office of Coudert Brothers, and later at Philadelphia's Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis.
She's active in several professional organizations, including the Law & Society Association and the American Society of International Law, and has served on the Executive Committee of the Section on Socio-Economics of the Association of American Law Schools.
In a further guest post below, Claire dedicates her contribution to 2 foremothers, Maître Alice Roullet-Piccard and Dr. Dorothea May Moore.

Heartfelt welcome!

On November 25

On this day in ...
... 1958, a colony in West Africa known as French Sudan "gained complete internal autonomy" (flag at left). Five months later it would join with Senegal to form the Mali Federation, a fully independent entity within the French Community for a few months in the summer of 1950, until Senegal seceded. Thereafter, in September 1960, "French Sudan proclaimed itself the Republic of Mali and withdrew from the French Community."

(Prior November 25 posts are here and here.)

Sabar: The Forbidden Dance

Senegal is a country with two vibrant traditions: Located on Africa's west coast, Senegal's population is ninety-five percent Muslim. But the traditions of the ancestors are an integral part of society. One way such traditions are kept alive is through art and culture. Sabar, a traditional dance and drumming technique, holds pride of place with Senegalese both as a form of expression and as a method of connecting with Senegal's rich past. It is played at weddings, christenings, as well as large family gatherings.

Not every segment of society views Sabar with pride. Since independence in 1960, some of Sabar's dance steps have been banned by various governments for being too sexually explicit. Muslim leaders have repeatedly denounced Sabar, and in the more fundamentalist regions of Senegal, the dance is simply forbidden. Sabar is under siege, but it persists.

The ban on Sabar also has gendered implications. Whenever the explosive combination of sex and religion meet, women always seem to find themselves in harms way. Recently, a famous female traditional dancer was tried and condemned for dancing the Sabar (the presiding judge was also a woman.)

Thankfully, with the advent of 21st century technology--and yes, globalization--the Senegalese are able to share the rich cultural heritage of Sabar with the world. Attached below is a short YouTube clip detailing the dance steps (for the prurient among us, the "objectionable" steps begin at 2:39!)]. The second clip is a short and excellent documentary exploring gender issues, Islam, and the Sabar in Senegal.


The Forbidden Steps of the Sabar:




Sabar and Women: A Documentary






Heart felt thank you to IntLawGrrl guest/alumna Fatou Kiné Camara for information on this important issue!

Death in absentia at home; trial abroad awaits

Le Monde reports that former Chadian President Hissène Habré (dressed in white in the photo at left) was convicted of crimes against humanity and yesterday sentenced to death by a criminal court in N'Djamena, Chad's capital city. But the defendant was not present: he's been in exile in Senegal since 1991.
"Africa's Pinochet" is the nickname that Human Rights Watch gave Habré, whose government is said to have "carried out some 40,000 politically motivated murders and 200,000 cases of torture" from when he seized power in 1982 and when he was deposed in 1990. That NGO maintains a Case against Habré webpage replete with documents and other links.
The premier situs for that case has not been Chad, however. Senegal indicted him, but its courts initially rebuffed the prosecution. Then Belgium issued an international arrest warrant. Senegal thus sought to extradite Habré, but its courts against rebuffed the effort. Then, in 2006, the African Union "[m]andate[d] the Republic of Senegal to prosecute and ensure that Hissène Habré is tried, on behalf of Africa, by a competent Senegalese court with guarantees for fair trial." And now? According to Le Monde,

Senegal's Minister of Justice, Madické Niang, indicated in July, after the country's legislature modified its Constitution to permit such a proceeding, that Dakar was 'ready' for the trial of Habré.

(credit for 2000 photo)

Guest Blogger: Fatou Kiné Camara

IntLawGrrls is pleased to introduce our guest blogger for today, Professor Fatou Kiné Camara (left). Kiné is Associate Professor of Law at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, where for almost twenty years she has taught Family Law, International Law (private aspects), International Arbitration and Dispute Settlement, and African Customary Law. (The New York Times did a story on the university, which can be found here.)
Kiné's research and writing centers on African customary law with an emphasis on feminist jurisprudence from an African perspective. Kiné is the author of two books (in French), Power and Justice in Black People’s Tradition and Matrimony in Black People’s Tradition, and is hard at work on her third, Propositions for a Democratic, Humanist and Developed Africa, which will provide a detailed blueprint on adapting Ancient Africa’s social, economic, and political structures to current challenges facing the continen a range of areas:
► "establishing a true democracy at every level of society";
► "implementing an effective industrialisation program"; and
► "changing the philosophy of the criminal law system."
A prolific writer, Kiné’s law review articles are too numerous to cite here, but a sampling includes: Women and the Law - A Critique of the Senegalese Family Law (Social Identities Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, Volume 13 Issue 6, 787), The Constitution of the Wolof Monarchies and the Lebu Republic: Addressing Gender in a Secular and Representative Democracy, (Droit Sénégalais, n°6, Nov. 2007), and Research on African Customary Law: A Proposed Methodology (Revue de Droit Sénégalais, n°5, November 2006). She was a visiting professor at Griffith Law School in Brisbane, Australia, and Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal, and was a faculty member in a seminar led by Richard Goldstone (former Justice of the South African Constutitonal Court and the first chief prosecutor in the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) entitled “Reconciling Religion and Culture in a Constitutional Framework.” When she is not teaching, writing or traveling, Kiné is an exceptional visual artist; her work was showcased at a gallery in Washington, D.C.
Kiné was recently invited to present a paper on African Customary law at a conference hosted by Fordham's Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, and her post below provides a glimpse at that forthcoming presentation. Kiné dedicates her guest post to Lingeer Ndaté Yàlla (depicted below). “Lingeer” is roughly translated from the Wolof (one of Senegal’s languages) as “queen,” although Kiné notes that in the West a queen is either the spouse of the king, or a woman who rules alone on the throne. By contrast, the Lingeer—who may be married—holds the title of counselor to the king, but she effectively holds true political power. As head of the kingdom of Waalo, Lingeer Yàlla, who joins IntLawGrrls' transnational foremothers listed at right, fought the French colonial army until her troops were defeated in 1855. You can read more on her life in French here and here, and in the English-language children's book depicting her at left.
Heartfelt welcome!