Le rôle des Traités dans les relations entre les puissances européennes et les souverains africains
This chapter divides the history of treaty-making between European and African powers into three periods. In the pre-colonial period through the end of the eighteenth century, European treaty relations with primarily North African powers reflected a non-discriminatory law of nations. During a transitional period leading to the 1885 Congress of Berlin, provisions of equality and reciprocity disappeared from European treaties with African powers. Still, as European powers sought to secure juridical title to African land through bilateral treaties of territorial cession and protection with African sovereigns, the latter retained a measure of influence over negotiations. After the Congress of Berlin, the majority of international jurists, members of the positivist school, defied the rules of traditional international law with a new conception of colonial protectorate that gave European powers carte blanche to occupy and annex the territory of ‘protected’ states.