Introduction

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Pages: 1
• Author: Olivier Moréteau
• Date: 16 August 2019
• Citation: (2015) 2(2) Journal of Comparative Law in Africa 1
• Published date: 16 August 2019

INTRODUCTION

Juris Diversitas was founded in 2007 as an international, interdisciplinary

community for the study of legal and normative mixtures and movements.

Originally composed of comparative law scholars, the group has opened

interdisciplinary conversations with anthropologists, geographers, historians,

philosophers, economists, linguists and sociologists, both within the law and

beyond, to explore the interaction of the law with all branches of human and

social sciences. Members are to be found on all continents and in many f‌ields,

expanding the outreach of comparative legal studies way beyond the limits of

the Western world. Juris Diversitas indeed challenges the Eurocentric and

Western-centric vision of the world.

After having partnered with other institutions to organise events and

promote publications, Juris Diversitas came to offer an annual conference of

its own, f‌irst in Lausanne in June 2013 (‘Diffusion’) and then in Aix-en-

Provence in 2014 (‘Comparative Law and . . . /Le droit comparé et . . .’).

The Aix-en-Provence conference attracted well over 100 participants from

all over the world, placing Africa higher on the map. Nearly one paper out of

ten addressed the African continent: still a small number but a relatively large

one when compared with comparative law conferences held elsewhere in

the world. While only one half of the other conference papers will be

published in the conference volume (Comparative Law and . . . / Le droit

comparé et . . ., Presses universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 2015), f‌ive African

papers are published in this special issue of the Journal of Comparative Law in

Africa, patiently compiled by Professor Salvatore Mancuso, Editor-in-Chief

of the journal, and Vice President of Juris Diversitas.

These papers feature signif‌icant regions of the continent and rich aspects of

its legal activity. They connect Africa with the rest of the world, with the

ethos of religion. They address constitutional law, codif‌ication, develop-

ment, criminal law, land law, intellectual property, and other aspects of

business activity. They feature non-African and African scholars working

inside and outside Africa. This is a lot more than a sample of comparative law

in Africa; this is a promising seed for the development of interdisciplinary

comparative legal studies inside and around the continent, within and outside

Juris Diversitas.

Juris Diversitas annual conferences travel around the world: Ireland

(Limerick) in 2015, the United States (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) in 2016. It is

hoped that Juris Diversitas will meet in Africa in the years to come, and

contribute in placing Africa at the forefront of comparative legal studies, as

does the Journal of Comparative Law in Africa.

Olivier Moréteau

President of Juris Diversitas

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(2015) 2(2) Journal of Comparative Law in Africa 1

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