The Pursuit of an Appropriate Dispute Resolution Philosophy for Africa

Appropriate Dispute Resolution (ADR) is rooted in Africa. However, this is not reflected in scholarship and practice. The last few decades have witnessed the supposed introduction of ADR in Africa, masquerading as an innovation imported from the USA and aiming to extend access to justice. This is a pure revisionism. While African communities rely on ADR to solve disputes, ADR epistemology has not developed in its scientific form. Hence, there is a dearth of literature on what emic unadulterated justice would look like in Africa. This article seeks to provide a framework for how to think about ADR in Africa by presenting five normative conceptions that are latent in African ADR: dispute avoidance; reconciliation; all-inclusive justice; consensus building; and matching disputes to the best process.