Taslim Olawale Elias
Taslim
Olawale Elias
(11 November 1914 – 14 August 1991) was a Nigerian jurist. He was Attorney-General and Chief Justice of
Nigeria
and a judge and President of the International
Court of Justice.
He was a scholar who modernised and extensively revised the laws of Nigeria.
Youth and studies
Elias
was born into the traditional aristocracy of Lagos, then the capital of
Nigeria, on 11 November 1914.[1] He received his secondary education at the Church
Missionary Society Grammar School and Igbobi College in Lagos. He married Ganiat Yetunde
Fowosere, and the couple would have five children together (three sons, two
daughters). After passing the Cambridge School Certificate examination, he
worked as an assistant in the Government Audit Department. In 1935 he joined
the Nigerian Railway and served in the Chief Accountant's Office for nine
years.
While
working at the Nigerian Railway Elias became an external student of London
University, and later he passed the intermediate examinations for the B.A. and
LL.B degrees. He left Nigeria for the United Kingdom in 1944 and was admitted
to University
College London.
As this was during World War II, with London the target of frequent bomb
attacks, he spent some time at Cambridge's Trinity College. He graduated with a
B.A. the year he entered University College London and two years later received
the LL.B. In 1947 he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple, where he was a Yarborough Anderson Scholar,
and in the same year received his LL.M degree. He continued his graduate education
and became the first African to earn a PhD in law from the University of London
in 1949.[2][3]
In
1951 Elias was awarded a UNESCO Fellowship to undertake
research into the legal, economic, and social problems of Africa. Later that
year he had his first academic appointment, the Simon Senior Research Fellow at
Manchester
University.
There he was an instructor in law and social anthropology. It was also in 1951
that he published his first book, Nigerian Land Law and Custom.
Professional life
Elias
moved from Manchester to Oxford in 1954 when he became the Oppenheimer Research
Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Nuffield College and Queen
Elizabeth House. He continued his research into Nigerian law and published
Groundwork of Nigerian Law in the same year. In 1956 he was visiting professor
of political science at the University of Delhi. He was instrumental in
organising courses in government, law, and social anthropology and in
establishing the African Studies Department. Elias also lectured at the
universities of Aligarh, Allahabad, Bombay, and Calcutta. In that year he also
published two books, Makers of Nigerian Law and The Nature of African Customary
Law.
He
returned to London in 1957 and was appointed a Governor of the School
of Oriental and African Studies. As the constitutional and legal adviser to
the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (which later became the
National Convention of Nigerian Citizens), he participated in the 1958 Nigerian
Constitutional Conference in London. He was one of the architects of Nigeria's
independence constitution
In
1960 Elias was invited to become Nigeria's Attorney-General and Minister of
Justice.[4] He served in this capacity through the whole
of the first republic. Although later dismissed after the coup d'état in
January 1966, he was reinstated in November of that year.
In
addition to contributing to Nigerian and African law, Elias had long been active
in field of international law.[5] He was a member of the United Nations
International Law Commission from 1961 to 1975, he served as General Rapporteur
from 1965 to 1966 and was its chairman in 1970.[5] He was the leader of the Nigerian
delegations to the conference held to consider the Draft Convention on the
Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States
in 1963 and to the Special Committee on the Principles of International Law
concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in 1964.[5] He was a member of the United Nations
Committee of Experts which drafted the constitution of the Congo, 1961–1962. He
also helped to draft the charter of the Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.),
and its Protocol of Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration.[5] Elias also represented the O.A.U. and
Nigeria before the International Court of Justice in the proceedings concerning
the status of Namibia.[5] He was elected as an associate member of the
Institut de droit international in 1969.[5] He was Chairman of the Committee of the
Whole at the Vienna Conference on the Law of Treaties (1968–1969).[6]
In
1966 Elias was appointed Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Lagos. Four years earlier he had
received the LL.D. degree from the University of London for his work on African
law and British colonial law. (He would go on to receive a total of 17 honorary
doctorate degrees from various universities around the world[5]). He was one the inaugural recipients of the Nigerian
National Merit Award in
1979.[7] Several of his works on various legal
subjects[5] were standard reading in Africa in law schools of
the former British colonies.
Later
in 1966, Elias was re-appointed as Nigeria's Attorney-General and Commissioner
for Justice (a position he held while remaining Dean and Professor at the
University of Lagos), until 1972, when he became Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.[4] He was ousted from this position by a
military regime that took power in Nigeria at the end of July 1975.
A
few months later (in October 1975), he was elected by the General Assembly and
the Security Council of the United Nations to the International
Court of Justice at
The Hague.[4] In 1979, he was elected Vice-President by
his colleagues on that Court. In 1981, after the death of Sir Humphrey Waldock,
the President of the Court, he took over as Acting President. In 1982, the
members of the Court elected him President of the Court. He thus became the
first African jurist to hold that honour. Five years later, Elias was also
appointed to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.
Death
Elias
died on 14 August 1991, in Lagos, Nigeria. The names of his five children are
Gbolahan, Olusoji, Olufemi, Yeside and Olufolake
Elias.
Relatives
Through
his niece, Joy Elias Rilwan by her marriage, he is related to the Hon. James Lascelles of Harewood. Lascelles is a first cousin,
once removed, of Queen Elizabeth II and in line of succession to the British
throne.
References
· Olaniyonu, Yusuph (18 September 2009). "Nigeria: Between Elias, Williams And Gani". allAfrica.com.
· · "Taslim O. Elias, 76, Is Dead in Nigeria; Headed
World Court". The New York Times. 15 August 1991.
· · Emmanuel G. Bello; Prince Bola Ajibola
(1992). Essays in Honour of Judge Taslim Olawale Elias. The Netherlands: Martinus
Nijhoff. pp. xv–xx. ISBN 0-7923-1426-3.
· · "United Nations Conference on the Law of
Treaties" (pdf). United Nations. Retrieved
21 October 2013.
· "Recipients from 1979:Prof. Olawale Elias". Nigerian
National Merit Award. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
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