Sustainability of Customary Law Arbitration within the Nigerian Legal System: Judicial Rigidity versus the Organic Fluidity of Customary Law

Philip O. Odiase

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Chapter 9 Sustainability of Customary Law Arbitration within the Nigerian Legal System: Judicial Rigidity versus the Organic Fluidity of Customary Law

In: Reimagining Legal Pluralism in Africa

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Philip O. Odiase

Philip O. Odiase
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 271–310

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004696747_010

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Abstract

Arbitration in recent times has become a more popular choice of dispute resolution in Nigeria. In line with the plural configuration of the Nigerian legal system, there are two broad forms of arbitration. These are arbitration conducted in line with the state law and secondly indigenous (customary and Islamic) law-regulated arbitration. Before colonisation, arbitration was the commonest mechanism for dispute resolution. However, colonisation had a profound impact on all pre-existing modes of dispute resolution, particularly on customary law arbitration. In impacting customary arbitration, the English-styled courts acting as the normative custodians and interpreters of state law, fashioned universally applicable ingredients required for binding customary arbitration without strict reference to a particular customary law. This chapter queries the formulation and petrification of these ingredients by the regular courts. In providing a comprehensive insight into this quandary of customary arbitration, it examines some selected landmark cases and questions the propriety of applying the doctrine of stare decisis to customary law. It concludes that customary law arbitration would thrive better if the courts could fit the quest for predictability within the dictate of the peculiarity and inherent organic nature of the different Nigerian customary laws.

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Reimagining Legal Pluralism in Africa

Balancing Indigenous, State, and Religious Laws

Series: Developments in International Law, Volume: 80

Cover Reimagining Legal Pluralism in Africa

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004696747

Publisher:: Brill | Nijhoff

Print Publication Date:: 17 May 2024

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Part 1 Succession in African Legal Pluralism

Part 2 Marriage in African Legal Pluralism

Part 3 Islamic and Comparative Law in African Legal Pluralism

Part 4 Theoretical Perspectives on African Legal Pluralism

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Chapter 9 Sustainability of Customary Law Arbitration within the Nigerian Legal System: Judicial Rigidity versus the Organic Fluidity of Customary Law

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Reimagining Legal Pluralism in Africa

Balancing Indigenous, State, and Religious Laws

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