Welcome to the African Law Association!

Since its foundation in Heidelberg in 1973 the African Law Association has committed itself to the promotion of “African law”. By this term we are referring to all international, national, customary and religious legal sources that relate to the African continent, in other words, the entire past and present legal culture of all African states in all its various forms and influences.

The African Law Association is a living network that consists of more than two hundred researchers, practitioners and students from mostly Europe and Africa. Its understanding is based on an interdisciplinary approach that unites law with political, historical and African science as well as ethnology and expertise in development aid.

Since 1975 the Association has held  annual conferences and has increasingly done so in cooperation with other scientific institutions. Our conference languages are German, English and French. The last 47^th annual conference has taken place in Leipzig on 5 May 2023 in cooperation with the University of Leipzig on"Legal Aspects of the protection of African cultural heritage protection". You can find further infromation on the conference on our homepage here.

In 1998, we started publishing our journal “Law in Africa”  which is published twice a year, since 2014 as online-journal in open access. The current edition as well as all past editions you can find here. Before, since 1981 the Yearbook for African Law was published on behalf of the association. From 2006 until 2021 we edited our own publication series.

Feel free to contact us at any time or join us for our next annual conference. As a member you will also be able to take advantage of inside information, such as our internal mailing list or engaging in the various activities of our Association.

We are looking forward to getting in touch with you!

Your Board of the African Law Association