@article{2025:nabaneh:the_coloni,
title = {The Colonial Architecture of Exclusion: The Personal Law Exemption and the Institutionalisation of Gender Subordination in West Africa and the Caribbean},
year = {2025},
note = {This article investigates the enduring impact of colonialism on gender
equality in post-colonial Commonwealth nations, focusing specifically
on examples from West Africa and the Caribbean. It focuses on
discriminatory provisions embedded in the constitutions of countries
in the Caribbean and West Africa that routinely exempt personal and
customary laws from non-discrimination protections. This uniformity is
traceable to the “Neo-Nigerian Bill of Rights” model, which serves
as the foundational template. This article uses process-tracing to
show how this model established a structural approach that guaranteed
a general right, while simultaneously authorising its suspension. The
article argues that this flawed constitutional design constitutes a
colonial suspension of women’s rights. Drawing on feminist legal
theory and postcolonial studies, the analysis examines the enduring
impact of colonialism on gender equality, particularly on the
structural failure embedded in their founding documents, an issue that
manifests differently in the plural legal systems of West Africa
versus the common law systems of the Caribbean. By comparatively
analysing The Gambia, Sierra Leone, The Bahamas, and Dominica, this
article illustrates how colonial legacies continue to shape gender
relations and legally institutionalise gender subordination.},
journal = {VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee},
pages = {369--389},
author = {Nabaneh, Satang},
volume = {58},
number = {3}
}