Global Legal History on German Colonies in Africa: Through Bias-Analysis Approach

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K20740
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 5:Law and related fields
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Taguchi Masaki 東京大学, 大学院法学政治学研究科(法学部), 教授 (20206931)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-07-30 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: ドイツ / アフリカ / 植民地 / 法 / 法学 / 慣習法 / 現地法 / 比較法

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Among the colonies that Germany held abroad until the end of World War I, this study examined the state of laws in colonies in Africa, particularly in the German East Africa (now Tanzania, Rwanda, and Hurundi). The research focused on the German government's indigenous law survey project at the beginning of the 20th century. Through focusing on the gap between the legal scholars in the metropole who planned the survey, those who conducted the survey in the colonial field and reported the results, and German legal scholars who finally consolidated the results after World War I, this study examined the framework of the Western law, indigenous laws which were deformed by that framework and the original layers of indigenous laws. By doing so this research tried to understand the state of laws in the colony as a whole.

Free Research Field

西洋法制史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は植民地の法状態について、現地法の「客観的」な調査と、西洋的法観念による現地慣習法の「創造」という両極端の見方から距離を取って、より実情に即した見方を提示しようとした。こうした見方は、直接検討対象としたドイツ領アフリカ植民地に限らず、広く西洋法と非西洋世界の非対称的接触の局面に応用しうる可能性を持っており、現在にまで続くいわゆるグローバル・サウスの法状態の理解にとって重要な寄与をなしうるものと思われる。