Where is the African Society of International Law Annual Conference being held?

The conference is being held in Kigali, RWA.

What is the primary focus of the AfSIL conference?

The conference focuses on contemporary issues in international law as they pertain to the African continent, fostering dialogue and research on evolving legal norms and their application.

Who typically attends this annual conference?

The conference attracts legal scholars, practitioners, and policymakers interested in international law within the African context.

African Society of International Law (AfSIL) 15th Annual Conference

Name: African Society of International Law (AfSIL) 15th Annual Conference
Start: 2026-11-06T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-11-07T00:00:00Z
Location: Kigali

Nov 6–7, 2026Kigali, RwandaIn-person

Registration open

The African Society of International Law (AfSIL) is hosting its annual conference in Kigali, Rwanda. This gathering serves as a crucial platform for legal scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to engage with contemporary issues in international law as they pertain to the African continent. The conference aims to foster dialogue and research on the evolving landscape of international legal norms and their application within diverse African contexts.

Committees & topics

Topics
Africa and the Challenge of Reparation in International Law · Foundations, Functions and Content of Reparation in International Law · Africa and Theoretical Approaches to Reparation and Justice · Africa and the Codification of Rules on Reparation in International Law · Equity Considerations and Reparation in International Law · Jus Cogens, Obligations Erga Omnes and Reparation · Reparation under Common Law and Special Regimes in International Law · Africa and Reparation for Past Crimes: Colonialism, Slavery and Apartheid

Why it matters

This conference is significant because it provides a dedicated forum for African voices to shape the discourse on international law. Historically, international legal frameworks have often been developed with limited input from African states, leading to principles that may not always fully address the continent's unique challenges and aspirations. By convening in RWA, AfSIL reinforces the importance of local perspectives in global legal dialogues.

The discussions at this conference are vital for understanding how international law can be leveraged to promote peace, security, and sustainable development across Africa. It offers an opportunity to address how international legal principles are applied and adapted across diverse African states, from regional integration efforts to the protection of human rights. The insights generated here can inform policy-making and legal reforms, ultimately contributing to a more equitable and effective international legal order.

Furthermore, the conference fosters collaboration among legal professionals from various African countries and beyond. This networking is essential for building a robust community of international law experts on the continent, capable of advocating for African interests on the global stage and developing innovative legal solutions to complex problems.

How to prepare

To prepare effectively for this conference, delegates should undertake a comprehensive review of recent developments in international law, with a particular focus on issues impacting Africa. This includes examining the work of regional bodies and the jurisprudence of international courts and tribunals concerning African states. Understanding the nuances of legal systems across the continent will be beneficial.

Delegates should also familiarize themselves with the specific legal and political context of RWA, the host nation. This involves researching its engagement with international law, its contributions to regional legal frameworks, and any significant legal challenges or reforms it has undertaken. Such preparation will enable more informed participation in discussions and a deeper appreciation of the local perspective.

Consideration should be given to the broader themes of self-determination, sovereignty, and development within international law, as these are frequently central to African legal discourse. Analyzing how these concepts are interpreted and applied in different African settings will be crucial for meaningful engagement. Reviewing relevant academic literature and policy papers from African legal scholars can also provide valuable insights.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Rwanda

Host nation, emphasizing its role in regional legal development and international cooperation.

Role in topic

As the host country, RWA plays a central role in facilitating discussions on international law from an African perspective. Its own experiences with international legal frameworks and its contributions to regional stability and development will likely inform many of the conference's dialogues.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Africa and the Challenge of Reparation in International Law

The question of reparation occupies a central place in African engagement with international law. From the transatlantic slave trade and colonial conquest to apartheid and contemporary resource exploitation, African states and peoples have endured large-scale injuries whose legal redress remains contested. The African Union declared 2025 the theme year of "Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations," reflecting decades of advocacy by the Organization of African Unity, CARICOM, and civil society for a coherent reparative framework. The core challenge lies in translating moral and political claims into enforceable international legal obligations. Classical doctrines on state responsibility, intertemporal law, and standing have historically been deployed to deflect African claims, while sovereign immunity and statutes of limitations have blocked litigation in domestic courts of former colonial powers. Recent developments — including the ICJ's Chagos advisory opinion, German recognition of the Herero and Nama genocide, and Belgian and Dutch apologies for colonial conduct — suggest a slow shift, but the legal architecture for systemic reparation remains underdeveloped. African international lawyers are now interrogating whether reparation should be pursued through reinterpretation of existing rules, codification of new instruments, or the construction of a distinctly African jurisprudence rooted in equity and historical justice. The debate engages questions of standing, quantification, beneficiaries, and the relationship between state, collective, and individual claims.

Key players

Foundations, Functions and Content of Reparation in International Law

Reparation in international law derives from the foundational principle articulated by the Permanent Court of International Justice in the Chorzów Factory case (1928): that the breach of an international obligation entails an obligation to make reparation in an adequate form, aimed at wiping out, as far as possible, the consequences of the wrongful act. This principle was codified in Articles 31–37 of the International Law Commission's 2001 Articles on State Responsibility, which enumerate restitution, compensation, and satisfaction as the three forms of reparation, alongside guarantees of non-repetition. The content of reparation has expanded significantly through human rights jurisprudence. The Inter-American Court, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, and the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation (2005) have broadened the concept to include rehabilitation, symbolic measures, and transformative reparations. Yet the functions of reparation — corrective, deterrent, restorative, and transformative — remain debated, particularly in cases involving historical injustices, mass atrocities, and structural harm. Contemporary debate focuses on whether the traditional bilateral model of state responsibility adequately captures injuries that are collective, intergenerational, and systemic in character. African scholars have questioned whether the Chorzów standard, conceived in an inter-European commercial dispute, can meaningfully address the scale and nature of harms suffered by African peoples.

Key players

Africa and Theoretical Approaches to Reparation and Justice

African theoretical engagement with reparation draws on multiple intellectual traditions: Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), pan-Africanism, ubuntu jurisprudence, Islamic legal concepts of restitution (radd al-mazalim), and customary African dispute-resolution practices emphasizing restoration of social harmony. These frameworks often challenge the individualist, bilateral, and monetary orientation of mainstream international reparation doctrine, foregrounding instead collective dignity, intergenerational responsibility, and structural transformation. Scholars such as Makau Mutua, Mohammed Bedjaoui, and Antony Anghie have argued that international law itself is implicated in the production of African injury, making purely doctrinal approaches inadequate. The New International Economic Order debates of the 1970s prefigured contemporary reparations claims by linking decolonization to economic restructuring. More recently, scholarship on "reparative justice," "epistemic reparations," and "decolonial reparations" has proposed frameworks that integrate material, symbolic, and structural dimensions. Key theoretical questions include: who is the proper subject of reparation when harms are collective and historical; whether reparation should aim at restoration of a pre-injury status quo or transformation of unjust structures; and how to reconcile universalist legal categories with particularist African experiences. The debate also engages the role of African philosophy and customary law as sources of international legal innovation.

Key players

Africa and the Codification of Rules on Reparation in International Law

The codification of reparation rules has been led principally by the International Law Commission, culminating in the 2001 Articles on State Responsibility and the 2011 Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations. African states participated in these processes but have argued that the resulting framework reflects predominantly Western state practice and inadequately addresses historical injustices, collective injuries, and the position of peoples rather than states. The 2005 UN Basic Principles on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation, the Maputo Protocol, and the African Charter system represent more African-influenced codification efforts. Within the African regional system, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights has developed a body of reparation jurisprudence, notably in the Ogiek and Endorois cases, while the AU Transitional Justice Policy (2019) provides a continental framework incorporating reparation as a pillar of transitional justice. Yet no binding continental instrument specifically codifies reparation rules for historical or contemporary harms. Current debates concern whether codification should proceed at the continental level (through an AU protocol or model law), within the ILC's ongoing work, or through soft-law instruments such as guidelines on reparation for slavery and colonialism. The choice of forum and instrument has significant implications for the universality, enforceability, and African ownership of resulting norms.

Key players

Equity Considerations and Reparation in International Law

Equity has long served as a corrective principle in international law, used by tribunals to temper the rigidity of formal rules and to achieve just outcomes in particular cases. Article 38(2) of the ICJ Statute permits decisions ex aequo et bono with party consent, while equity infra, praeter, and contra legem have shaped maritime delimitation, watercourse allocation, and state responsibility. In the reparation context, equity informs the assessment of compensation, the apportionment of responsibility, and the mitigation of harshness in applying strict legal rules. For African claims, equity is doubly significant. It offers a doctrinal pathway to address historical injustices that may fall outside formal legal categories — through concepts such as unjust enrichment, equitable estoppel against pleas of intertemporal law, and equitable shares of common heritage. African judges, including Judge Bedjaoui and Judge Yusuf, have developed equity-based reasoning in ICJ and arbitral practice. Equity also resonates with African customary approaches that prioritize substantive fairness over formal rule application. Key questions include the relationship between equity and other sources of law, the limits of judicial discretion in awarding equitable reparation, the role of equity in quantifying compensation for non-pecuniary harms, and whether equity can ground claims for reparation absent a clear primary rule violation. The debate intersects with broader concerns about distributive justice in the international legal order.

Key players

Jus Cogens, Obligations Erga Omnes and Reparation

Peremptory norms (jus cogens) and obligations erga omnes occupy a privileged position in international law, reflecting fundamental community values such as the prohibitions of genocide, slavery, apartheid, torture, racial discrimination, and aggression. The ILC's 2022 Conclusions on Identification and Legal Consequences of Peremptory Norms, together with the 2001 Articles on State Responsibility (Articles 40–41 and 48), articulate special consequences for serious breaches, including duties of cooperation, non-recognition, and the standing of non-injured states to invoke responsibility. The relationship between these norms and reparation is critical for African claims. Slavery, the slave trade, apartheid, and colonial domination are widely characterized as violations of peremptory norms, raising the question whether such characterization generates reparation obligations that override conventional defenses based on intertemporal law, immunity, or statutes of limitations. The ICJ's Jurisdictional Immunities judgment (2012) and the 2024 Chagos and Israeli Occupied Palestinian Territory advisory opinions illustrate both the potential and the constraints of jus cogens-based claims. Debate continues on whether erga omnes standing extends to historical reparation claims, whether peremptory norms have retroactive effect for purposes of reparation, and how the special legal regime of jus cogens interacts with state immunity. African states and scholars have been prominent in advocating expansive readings that link peremptory norms to robust reparation duties.

Key players

Reparation under Common Law and Special Regimes in International Law

While the general law of state responsibility provides a default reparation regime, numerous special (self-contained) regimes operate alongside or in derogation of it. Investment treaty arbitration, WTO dispute settlement, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and the law of the sea each contain distinctive reparation rules — from full reparation in investor-state arbitration to the trust fund model under the Rome Statute, and the limited remedies available in WTO proceedings. The interaction between general and special regimes was central to the ILC's lex specialis clause (Article 55 ARSIWA). Common law jurisdictions, particularly in litigation arising from colonial harms (such as Mau Mau, Mau Mau Veterans, and Caribbean slavery claims), have applied tort-based reparation principles to wrongs with international dimensions. The interplay between domestic common law remedies, sovereign immunity, and international legal characterization shapes the practical availability of reparation. Hybrid mechanisms — such as the UN Compensation Commission, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission, and the ICC Trust Fund — illustrate how special regimes can deliver reparation at scale. For Africa, the proliferation of special regimes raises questions of fragmentation, forum choice, and coherence. The Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission's restrictive approach to compensation, the limited reparation outcomes in ICC cases (Lubanga, Katanga, Al Mahdi, Ntaganda), and ongoing investment arbitration claims against African states all highlight tensions between the promise and delivery of reparation within specialized frameworks.

Key players

Africa and Reparation for Past Crimes: Colonialism, Slavery and Apartheid

Reparation for colonialism, the transatlantic and trans-Saharan slave trades, and apartheid represents the most politically charged and doctrinally challenging dimension of African engagement with international law. The 2001 Durban Declaration recognized slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity and acknowledged that colonialism led to massive suffering, while stopping short of endorsing a binding reparation regime. The African Union and CARICOM have since coordinated on a Ten-Point Plan for reparatory justice, and 2025 has been designated the AU theme year for reparations. Significant precedents have emerged: Germany's 2021 recognition of the Herero and Nama genocide (without formally accepting legal reparation); the UK's 2013 settlement with Mau Mau detainees; Belgium's apology and restitution measures relating to the Congo Free State and Lumumba's assassination; the Netherlands' apology for slavery; and France's restitution of cultural objects to Benin and Senegal. The ICJ's 2019 Chagos advisory opinion affirmed that decolonization obligations continue to bind, opening avenues for reparation arguments grounded in incomplete decolonization. Core legal obstacles persist: the intertemporal law doctrine, sovereign immunity, statutes of limitations, identification of beneficiaries and successor states, and quantification. Yet the trajectory of state practice, regional advocacy, and emerging jurisprudence suggests that the framework is in transition. Debate continues over whether reparation should be pursued through litigation, negotiated settlements, structural reform of the international economic order, or a combination — and whether material, symbolic, and transformative measures should be pursued in parallel.

Key players