ABSTRACT
African courts seem to maintain that they can deal with these often in terms of traditional customary rules, and they also act on occasion in terms of what we can call 'natural justice'. There is no generalized concept of executory contract in customary law, which is to say that the mere exchange of promises by itself has no legal validity. Contracts also exhibit a lack of finality, in that sales of land are redeemable in some instances, and there is no limitation of action. If customary law is to promote the development of commerce, then changes will be needed in the rules about mistake, misrepresentation, warranties, damages, and remedies. For though there is a conception of contract, there is no clear or sufficient differentiation between the concepts in contract, and partly as a result, the courts have not been able to solve satisfactorily the problems presented by novel contractual situations.
