Law Commons^™

Status And Contract In An Emerging Democracy: The Evolution Of Dispute Resolution In Ghana, Paul F. Kirgis

Faculty Law Review Articles

Ghana is one of the developing world’s success stories. The first sub-Saharan colony to gain independence, it is a stable democracy experiencing sustained economic growth. Yet as Ghana reaches for the material gains of participation in modern commercial life, its dual legal systems—the system of customary adjudication by traditional authorities and the formal court system—have come under increasing pressure. New legal developments have truncated the authority of traditional decisionmakers, while an overburdened court system lacks the resources to fill the resulting adjudicative gaps. To solve the problem, Ghana is now experimenting with a system of quasi-public dispute resolution, including contractual …