Law Development And The Ethiopian Revolution

A survey of Ethiopian affairs, focusing on the overthrow of the monarchy during the 1974 revolution. Interdisciplinary in approach, the book reformulates conventional theories of jurisprudence to make them applicable outside of their Western context.

This 1988 text traces the continuities between revolutionary Ethiopia and the development of a centralised Ethiopian state since the nineteenth century.

This book is a comprehensive account of the Ethiopian revolution, dealing with the entire span of the revolutionary government's life. Particular emphasis is placed on effectively isolating and articulating the causes and outcomes of the revolution. The author traces the revolution's roots in the weaknesses of the autocratic regime of Haile Selassie, examines the formative years of the revolution in the mid-seventies, when the ideology of scientific socialism was espoused by the ruling military council, and finally charts the consolidation of Mengistu Haile Miriam's power from 1977 to the adoption of a new constitution in 1987. In examining these events, Dr Tiruneh makes extensive use of primary sources written in the national official language. He was also the first Ethiopian nation to write a book on this subject. This book is thus a unique account of a fascinating period, capturing the mood of the revolution as never before, yet firmly grounded in scholarship.

The papers by international and Ethiopian scholars included in Human Rights and Development: Legal Perspectives from and for Ethiopia focus on the interconnectedness between the protection of human rights and the achievement of development. The book adds to the international debate by providing a unique insight into the Ethiopian perspective on the nexus between rights and development and by discussing how this nexus manifests itself in the Ethiopian context. The comparative and international frameworks and examples constitute a valuable resource for the debate on human rights and development in Ethiopia, which is currently taking place in the context of the developmental state approach pursued by the Ethiopian government.

This is the first English-language overview of the history of Ethiopian law. It describes the main features of its unique development on the basis of indigenous customary law and Roman-Byzantine legal traditions. The study also pays attention to the codification of laws and modernization of the judicial system undertaken in the reign of Emperor Haile Sellassie (1930-1974), and to matters of procedural and court justice. Throughout, topics and areas for further research are identified.