RETHINKING INTERNATIONAL LAW FROM AFRICA Contestation, Contribution, and Transformation

ACADEMIC SYMPOSIUM AND FESTSCHRIFT LAUNCH

Symposium | Africa and the Contestation of International Law

Join us for a symposium examining Africa’s role in the production, interpretation, and transformation of international law. Through two panels bringing together scholars and experts, the discussions will address institutions and rights, as well as the environmental, economic, and social transformations of international law.

The symposium will conclude with the official launch of the Festschrift in honour of Dean Maurice Kamto.

October 14, 2026, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Salon François-Chevrette, Room A-3464, Maximilien-Caron Building
Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal

Free registration for in-person attendance.

Presentation

International law has long maintained a profoundly ambivalent relationship with Africa. Historically mobilized to legitimize slavery, colonization, and certain contemporary forms of dependency, it has also provided a legal language that African states, institutions, and jurists have appropriated to defend their sovereignty, develop regional legal regimes, and propose original responses to global challenges.

This ambivalence runs throughout the scholarly work of Professor Maurice Kamto. While his scholarship does not fall exclusively within critical or postcolonial approaches, his thinking combines the rigour of the legal positivist, close attention to political realities, and an objectivist conception of international law. It invites us to question the capacity of established norms to respond to the concrete needs of international society, particularly where formal legal equality conceals profound asymmetries of power.

This symposium seeks to address the following question:

“How can Africa move from being an object or recipient of international law to being recognized as a site for the production, interpretation, and transformation of international law?”

The contributions collected in Africa and the Contestation of International Law examine this question through three complementary dimensions: the intellectual foundations and sources of law; Africa’s appropriation of international institutions and legal regimes; and, finally, the substantive transformation of law in response to environmental, economic, and social inequalities.

The symposium seeks to move beyond the opposition between adherence and contestation. It will consider the conditions under which African critique can become a genuine force for the reconstruction of international law.

Programme

2:00–2:10 p.m. | Welcome and Opening Remarks

Alain-Guy Sipowo, From a Victim Posture to a Normative Actor: Rethinking African Contestation of International Law

LL.D., lawyer, Assistant Professor at the School of Criminology, Université de Montréal; Member of the International Centre for Comparative Criminology (CICC) and the Centre for International Studies and Research at Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM)

2:10–3:20 p.m. | Panel 1 – Rethinking Foundations, Rights, and Institutions from an African Perspective

Guy Azebové Tetang, The Imaginary of International Law: An “Exoticism” for Africa?

Doctor of Law and Lecturer at Université de Montréal

Pythagore Nono Kamgaing, Equality between Men and Women in the Arab Charter on Human Rights

Former official with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Independent Researcher

Amissi M. Manirabona, An African Criminal Court: Why Not?

Full Professor, Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal

Simon Pierre Hemle Djob Sotong, The African Anti-Corruption Mechanism: Redundancy, Alternative, or Complementarity?

Doctor of Law; Research Associate at the École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP); Investigator and Expert at the Public Procurement Authority (AMP)

3:20–3:30 p.m. | Break

3:30–4:40 p.m. | Panel 2 – Africa and the Environmental, Economic, and Social Transformations of International Law

Maura Marchegiani, Sustainable Development from an African Perspective

Professor of International Law, University for Foreigners of Perugia

Dieudonné Édouard Onana Onguéné, Convergence of the State’s International Obligations: Investment and the Environment

Doctor of Law and Lecturer at Université Laval

Thierry Galani-Tiemeni, Towards a Contestation of the Institutionalized Peripheries of Transnational Labour Law

Doctor of Law (LL.D.), University of the Western Cape

Lyes Sam, Africa’s Contribution to International Refugee Law: Contestation or Consolidation? (To be confirmed)

Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Tizi Ouzou, Algeria

4:40–4:55 p.m. | Concluding Remarks

Charles Moumouni, From Africa as an Object to Africa as an Actor in the Transformation of International Law

Lawyer and Full Professor, Université Laval

5:00 p.m. | Official Launch of the Festschrift in Honour of Dean Maurice Kamto