Legal reception in the AU against the backdrop of the monist/dualist dichotomy

Abstract

The relationship between international and domestic law is traditionally viewed through the lens of the monist/dualist dichotomy. While monists view international and domestic law as two sides of the same coin and therefore see no need for the reception of international law into national law, dualists hold the opposite viewpoint. The monist and dualist schools rely on their construction of the relationship between international and domestic law to prescribe how/how not reception should take place. Interestingly, neither of the two schools pays much attention to the role the nature of the international law to be received should play in how the reception of such law takes place. It is the main aim of this article to investigate whether the nature of international law should influence how it is received into domestic legal systems at the African Union level.