Constitutionalism and Democratic Governance in Africa: - PULP

Steve’s publications
One way of paying tribute to Steve, and to remember him, is by listening
to his own words, as expressed in some of his publications. Steve’s voice
has a very distinct ring, because he was both a lawyer and political
scientist. Having been schooled in both international law and political
science, Steve was able to provide a distinct academic vantage point.
Positioned on the cusp of two separate disciplines, he was able to bring
particular and very valuable insights. In one of Steve’s contributions (a
chapter on the politics of international criminal justice and the
International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for President Al Bashir,
contained in a collection of essays by alumni on criminal justice in Africa
(‘Politics of international criminal justice: The ICC’s arrest warrant for Al
Bashir and the African Union’s neo-colonial conspirator thesis’ in C
Murungu and J Biegon (eds) Prosecuting international crimes in Africa 145
(Pretoria: PULP, 2011) he identified his own particular contribution to the
debate exactly as a hybrid of law and politics (at 146):
The analysis is hybrid in nature, drawing from the disciplines of law and
political science, and is therefore a challenge to lawyers, calling on them to
unpack controversial factual issues and in so doing, add to their understanding
of the complex non-legal factors that are at play in international criminal
justice. Likewise, it is a challenge to political scientists to pay more attention to
legal phenomena that are often at play and likely to influence political
processes. It is only through a meeting of minds by scholars, practitioners and
policy makers from these two fields that sound judgments grounded in law and
political reality may be reached and successfully implemented.
Steve’s emphasis on the potential synergy and the added advantage of the
one discipline (law) to the other (politics), and the other way round, made
him a very strong proponent of a multi-disciplinary approach to the study
of conflicts in Africa, and their effects, including criminal prosecution and
their underlying causes.
Steve’s deep concern for the underlying causes of conflict in Africa
appears from his analysis in the article ‘Reflections on the causes of conflict
in Africa: ethnicity or failure of leadership’ ((2005) 13 International Law
Students Association Quarterly 25). As the title of his article suggests, he
investigated ethnicity and the failure of leadership as major root causes of
conflict. On the issue of ethnicity, he presented a nuanced view,
underlining the following: ‘Ethnicity on its own is not a negative concept.
Indeed the peculiar ways of dress, types of food and dance of a given group
of people are in themselves not destructive.’ However, he added the
following: ‘What is destructive is isolationist ethnicity carried out by those
in authority and has been the cause of civil strife that characterizes Africa
today.’ Underlining the importance of leadership, he continued in the
following way:
A leader is instrumental in creating the mood, ideals and general character
that prevails in his or her country at any given time. Where a leader not only
speaks of reconciliation and unity, but also practices the same, then such
practice spills over to the local populous and a mood of peace and sense of
unity take centre stage. Where a leader engages in ethnic politics either by
publicly denouncing an ethnic group or remaining silent upon such
denunciation or condoning the practice of the same in institutions, he only
creates an atmosphere of animosity between ethnic groups in his country and
suspicion.
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