ABSTRACT
K. N. Llewellyn and E. A. Hoebel’s Cheyenne study have concentrated on the detailed description and analysis of trouble-cases for the study of unwritten law. The case method, focused upon ‘law-in-action’, the process of ‘dispute settlement’ or ‘conflict resolution’, became their favourite tool in research and comparative theory-stimulating study. The demands for legal reform have assumed a new urgency, and inspired a search for unification of large areas of substantive law in order to resolve the plurality of both indigenous and imported legal systems. A project like A. N. Allott’s Restatement of African Law, is a major effort to abstract and systematize the unwritten rules of customary substantive law. It may well become a useful guide, both to officers of the new government courts which have replaced the traditional and ‘home-grown’ tribal authorities, and to law reformers seeking generalities in the variety of customary law which might serve as building material for a more unified national system.
