It was launched in November 2020 to promote collaborative research, postgraduate teaching, and supervision. Its flagship teaching programme is an interdisciplinary LLM in Legal Pluralism and Family Law in Africa, which is billed to commence in January 2022.

CLIA aspires to become the confluence of interdisciplinary research on the interaction of legal orders in sub-Saharan Africa. This interaction is problematic in South Africa mainly due to dissonance between the past and present social settings in which Africans interact. However, the history of legal pluralism in the Global North suggests that the European laws imposed through colonial transplants will eventually merge with indigenous African laws. CLIA therefore seeks to shift academic and policy attention from conflict of laws to dialogue between state laws and customary laws.

CLIA invites collaborations from development practitioners and scholars of legal pluralism. Its acting director is Associate Professor Anthony Diala, who is supported by an advisory board that includes professors Janine Ubink, Christa Rautenbach, and Enyinna Nwauche. More information can be accessed on CLIA’s budding website: law.uwc.ac.za/entities/centre-for-legal-integration-in-africa