This book deals with the conflict between Northern and Southern Sudan over the Abeyi region and other border areas. This area has historically been a model of peaceful coexistence and cooperation but since its independence it has become a point of violent confrontation. Frontiers of Unity provides an essential background to the complexities of the conflict, looking at the factors behind it and calling for the resolution of Africa's longest running dispute. First written in 1972, after the agreement that ended the war in Sudan, the original text has been supplemented by additions and modifications to update its relevance to the current situation in Southern Sudan. In 1983, the continuing dispute in Abyei led to the resumption of hostilities and the eventual escalation into a full-fledged armed struggle under the leadership of the SPLM/A, which continues today. Without resolving the cause of Abyei and the other border areas of the Nuba and Southern Blue Nile, no sustainable peace between the North and South is possible. This important historical document will be of great relevance to scholars of African-Arab relations, conflict and peace studies and nation building.

Customary Law in the Modern World is the study of a coherent and well-established legal system, which is now operating in the context of a modern nation-state and therefore poised between remaining relevant and the threat of marginalization. Focusing on Sudan, the author places customary law in its historical and cultural context, analyzing the fundamental and traditional values that underlie customary law and the impact of the war between the North and the South that lasted intermittently for half a century. He deals with the substance of customary law, covering a wide variety of areas: family law, property law, torts and criminal liability. Drawing on interviews conducted with judges, legislators and practicing lawyers on customary law and its future in the modern context, the book challenges the development of customary law to build on the positives of tradition and the reform of its shortcomings, particularly in the areas of human rights, gender equality and the protection of children. This book fills a gap in the literature on customary law, and will be of great interest to anyone interested in law, anthropology and politics.

The civil war that has intermittently raged in the Sudan since independence in 1956 is, according to Francis Deng, a conflict of contrasting and seemingly incompatible identities in the Northern and Southern parts of the country. Identity is seen as a function of how people identify themselves and are identified in racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious terms. The identity question related to how such concepts determine or influence participation and distribution in the political, economic, social, and cultural life of the country.

War of Visions aims at shedding light on the anomalies of the identity conflict. The competing models in the Sudan are the Arab-Islamic mold of the North, representing two-thirds of the country in territory and population, and the remaining Southern third, which is indigenously African in race, ethnicity, culture, and religion, with an educated Christianized elite. But although the North is popularly defined as racially Arab, the people are a hybrid of Arab and African elements, with the African physical characteristics predominating in most tribal groups.

This configuration is the result of a historical process that stratified races, cultures, and religions, and fostered a "passing" into the Arab-Islamic mold that discriminated against the African race and cultures. The outcome of this process is a polarization that is based more on myth than on the realities of the situation. The identity crisis has been further complicated by the fact that Northerners want to fashion the country on the basis of their Arab- Islamic identity, while the South is decidedly resistant.

Francis Deng presents three alternative approaches to the identity crisis. First, he argues that by bringing to the surface the realities of the African elements of identity in the North-- thereby revealing characteristics shared by all Sudanese--a new basis for the creation of a common identity could be established that fosters equitable participation and distribution. Second, if the issues that divide prove insurmountable, Deng argues for a framework of diversified coexistence within a loose federal or confederate arrangement. Third, he concludes that partitioning the country along justified borders may be the only remaining option to end the devastating conflict.

First published in 2006. The innovative work by Francis Deng, the noted scholar, diplomat, legal expert and author, moves the study of negotiation out of the limited traditional context of industrial relations and resituates it in the broader arena of negotiating human relations, drawing on his childhood experiences, inter-racial and cross-cultural encounters at home and abroad, and incidents from his diplomatic career.

This book deals with the conflict between Northern and Southern Sudan over the Abeyi region and other border areas. This area has historically been a model of peaceful coexistence and cooperation but since its independence it has become a point of violent confrontation. Frontiers of Unity provides an essential background to the complexities of the conflict, looking at the factors behind it and calling for the resolution of Africa's longest running dispute. First written in 1972, after the agreement that ended the war in Sudan, the original text has been supplemented by additions and modifications to update its relevance to the current situation in Southern Sudan. In 1983, the continuing dispute in Abyei led to the resumption of hostilities and the eventual escalation into a full-fledged armed struggle under the leadership of the SPLM/A, which continues today. Without resolving the cause of Abyei and the other border areas of the Nuba and Southern Blue Nile, no sustainable peace between the North and South is possible. This important historical document will be of great relevance to scholars of African-Arab relations, conflict and peace studies and nation building.

Customary Law in the Modern World is the study of a coherent and well-established legal system, which is now operating in the context of a modern nation-state and therefore poised between remaining relevant and the threat of marginalization. Focusing on Sudan, the author places customary law in its historical and cultural context, analyzing the fundamental and traditional values that underlie customary law and the impact of the war between the North and the South that lasted intermittently for half a century. He deals with the substance of customary law, covering a wide variety of areas: family law, property law, torts and criminal liability. Drawing on interviews conducted with judges, legislators and practicing lawyers on customary law and its future in the modern context, the book challenges the development of customary law to build on the positives of tradition and the reform of its shortcomings, particularly in the areas of human rights, gender equality and the protection of children. This book fills a gap in the literature on customary law, and will be of great interest to anyone interested in law, anthropology and politics.