Partners Help Our Law Book Program Continue to Grow and Expand

Seventeen years ago, at the 20th Anniversary celebration of Books For Africa, we launched a law book program. Unlike medical or just about any other graduate-level course of study, law is country and state specific. Not every law book is appropriate in an African legal setting. That said, many African countries base their legal systems on the British common law, as do we. Or they trade with their neighbors who are Anglophone countries.

We started our law book program as a partnership with Thomson Reuters. They provide us with latest edition legal texts in subjects that have been specifically requested by African law schools and bar associations.

Three years ago, the American Bar Association (ABA) joined our partnership. ABA Publishing now provides us with books they publish, which are added to the Thomson Reuters texts. Also, three years ago the Attorney General Alliance began to partner with us. One of their programs provides training to African AG offices and to African Judiciary. The AG Alliance has sponsored several of our reference law libraries to African Judiciary and Attorney General/Minister of Justice offices.

We sent a record number of our reference law libraries this year. Among the recipient list are 2 law schools in Nigeria, the Kenya Women Lawyer’s Association, the Sierra Leone Attorney General’s office, and the Supreme Court of Ethiopia and the regional Oromia Supreme Court. Since the beginning of last year we have sent 20 law libraries to legal recipients in 12 African countries. Click here to see where the books have been sent.

This past year we’ve also been able to send law libraries to some African countries that we rarely serve with containers of schoolbooks. One of those countries is Tunisia. We sent a law library to the International Diplomatic Academy in Tunis. It trains diplomats from all over Africa and the Middle East. While it is a French and Arabic speaking country, English is the major diplomatic language. Part of the training of diplomats is on legal principles and the Rule of Law.

We sent a reference law library to the Seychelles, an island nation located off the east coast of Africa, north of Madagascar. English is the main language for government and business. The law library went to the library facility that serves their Judiciary and Attorney General’s office.

One law library is currently on a ship with an ETA in the next week. It is going to The Gambia, a former British colony in the middle of Senegal. The Gambia has recently established a new Commercial Court but they have almost no law books. They are especially excited about the legal texts with a variety of business law topics. The Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association will be holding their triennial conference in Banjul, the capital of The Gambia the last week of September. We have our fingers crossed that our reference law library arrives, is through customs and shelved at the new court in time for the conference!

Finally, last fall a reference law library arrived at the Supreme Court of Malawi in Blantyre. We received a wonderful letter of appreciation from their Chief Justice, Rizine Mzikamanda, in which he said: We are truly grateful for such a donation. These books will be very useful to the Malawi Judiciary. Kindly convey my profound gratitude for this donation that came at the right time. We do not take your generosity for granted.”

As a young lawyer, Chief Justice Mzikamanda was a Humphrey Fellow at the University of Minnesota in 1997. We are excited that he has accepted our invitation to return to the Twin Cities in early November. We are hosting, in partnership with the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, a reception in his honor on Wednesday evening, November 5th.