Towards an African professional history of international law: The life and work of Kéba Mbaye

Abstract

Kéba Mbaye (1924-2007)2 was a Senegalese jurist who served with distinction in the Senegalese judiciary, the United Nations human rights system, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in ad hoc international tribunals, and in the Olympic movement.3 He was most notably the ‘inspirer and author of the preliminary draft’4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter). He also led the drafting of important international legal instruments including the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA)5 legal framework, the Statute of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and the LinasMarcoussis Peace Agreement. He served on international commissions on bioethics, labour law, and for the investigation of mass human rights violations in Yugoslavia, Southern Africa, and Palestine, among others. He helped mediate peace through conciliation first in the OAU structures of the 1980s, and later in the Ivorian peace process. He both campaigned against apartheid in the early 1980s and led South Africa’s readmission to the Olympic movement after the fall of apartheid. At home, he guided Senegal’s transition to multiparty politics in the early 1990s.