Ancient Dispute Resolution Practices and their Lessons for Today: The African Contribution

by Olajide Olagunju

Overview

This book examines the import, variety and convergence of African Dispute Resolution and their relevance in contemporary times. It draws on six decades of African experience; thirty years of scholarship in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and African Dispute Resolution; twenty years of research in peace studies and anthropology and the following twenty-five questions:
• How did people live in pre-colonial Africa?
• What types of disputes and dispute resolution mechanisms existed in pre-colonial Africa?
• What is the African philosophy of conflict?
• Is African dispute resolution spiritual or merely social?
• What is the relationship between African values and African dispute resolution?
• What is the goal/focus of African dispute resolution?
• Is there an African approach to dispute resolution?
• Is there a commonality in African dispute resolution between different cultures?
• Is African dispute resolution one track or different approaches exist?
• How are intercommunal disputes resolved?
• Are there second-order disputes?
• Does African dispute resolution cover only civil cases, or does it also include criminal matters?
• Where does African dispute resolution take place?
• Who selects those who conduct African dispute resolution? How are they selected? Is gender an issue in selection?
• Are there procedural steps in African dispute resolution?
• Are there rules governing African dispute resolution?
• Are there skills that are required for African dispute resolution?
• How are African dispute resolution skills learned or taught from one generation to the other?
• At the end of African dispute resolution, do we have an agreement between the parties or a third-party imposition?
• What sociocultural changes and values have affected African dispute resolution approaches?
• What makes African dispute resolution resilient?
• What is the difference between traditional and modern disputes in Africa?
• What changes have taken place in African dispute resolution's approaches because of exposure to new approaches to dispute resolution, notably the modern Court systems: How has colonialism impacted African dispute resolution?
• Is it African or humane dispute resolution?
• What does African dispute resolution teach the world about dispute resolution?

Product Details

BN ID:	2940184692661
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	04/30/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	107 KB

About the Author

Olajide Olagunju, PhD, FCIArb, FICMC, multilingual professor of conflict resolution, attorney at law, anthropologist, peace scholar, arbitrator and mediator, studies the intersection of policy, prosperity and peace. He is the president of Jesus College, Maryland-USA. He also teaches at Bakke Graduate University, Texas and the Universite´ de l'Alliance Chre´tienne d'Abidjan, Co^te d'Ivoire. Furthermore, he pioneered the profession of mediation in Nigeria in 1995 with the establishment of Corporate Mediators, which has trained and certified several mediators in addition to conflict resolution advocacy and publication. He pioneered the teaching of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) at both the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and the Nigerian Law School in April and August 1996 respectively. He also introduced the teaching of ADR at Salem University Lokoja in 2011.
Published in thirty international languages, he wrote How to Resolve a Conflict (2020/2024) - Nigerian Law School’s first ADR textbook at its first edition - Commercial Mediation (1998). The latest edition has been listed on the Best Mediation Books of All Times. It is the text of the YouTube Daily Lecture Series: How to Resolve a Conflict, which premiered on January 1, 2021. He also wrote Legal Theft: Making Law for Underdevelopment and Conflict - The Problem with Nigeria (2017/2024) and African Art as Hegemony and Other Essays in Cultural Anthropology (2015/2023), amongst several other publications. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Conflict Studies (JOCS) where he is also an author.
Former federal legal counsel and special adviser, labor and conflict management, he contributed to the December 2012 resolution of labor disputes around the privatization of Nigerian electricity. The country has also engaged him severally to train community leaders in conflict resolution skills to stem widespread communal violence. He has consulted for the World Bank, the United Nations, Chevron Corporation, President Olusegun Obasanjo's African Leadership Forum and several countries and groups.