By Our Staff Writer
Professor Toyin Falola, a recipient of the honorary Doctor of Law, University of Calgary, will deliver the Keynote Address at the 2025 Recognition of Achievement Ceremony Award, Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, South Africa, on Thursday, April 10. The event is from 6.00 PM to 8.30 PM, at the Albert Wessels Auditorium, Bloemfontein Campus.
According to Professor Serges Kamga, the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Professor Falola’s lecture is entitled “The Rule of Law in Contemporary Africa: Foreign Impacts, Local Degenerations and Framework for Change.”
Professor Falola in an interview about the forthcoming lecture said that the rule of law is the bulwark of any democracy. He regards it as a concept that has been institutionalized into every democratic system of government, and its precepts serve to fasten and strengthen the principles of democracy in any system. He emphasized that “whereas there is a predominant focus on the rule of law and its application in municipal law, its existence, application, and challenges as the bedrock of international law is less scrutinized.”
Falola’s lecture argues that the increasing undermining of the rule of law in international politics has affected its contemporaneous adherence in Africa. The attitude of the forerunners of international institutions in observing international laws they so fought to develop is a deciding factor in the way other countries respond to these rules. When the rules of international law are contravened and depleted by foreign actions or foreign leaders in their locale, the rule of law has been attacked. To Falola, “the response and reaction of the forerunners of these international laws, which is often a spear of recalcitrance, has significant damning effects on how Africa interfaces with the rule of law.”
The preeminent don insists that his lecture does not suggest that Africa takes a back seat in the international scene, nor does it endorse wholesale the template put forward by the Western governments and bodies. Instead, the argument is that when international proponents break these international norms, conventions, and agreements, Africa suffers more from such actions.
This outstanding lecture scrutinizes, as a template, the legality of the executive orders of President Donald Trump and their disregard for the rule of law, the trampling on the interests of other countries, and the corollary contemporary African disregard for and violations of the rule of law which is being systematically tested and routinized in international relations. To strengthen the institution of the rule of law and its framework, which hinders the buffeting of democracy, Falola offers recommendations for national and continental efforts towards legal and institutional independence.
