This book has been some years in gestation. Conceived in an era of optimism after the almost miraculous constitutional transition in South Africa and the emergence of a new democratic dispensation in other countries of eastern and southern Africa, our offspring has emerged from the delivery room in the summer of 2002 in an atmosphere clouded by serious threats to the practice of good governance in the region. The world's press is full of pessimistic stories of the breakdown of the rule of law in Zimbabwe, once heralded as a model for African development, and of the regional prospect of disastrous famines exacerbated by evidence of governmental corruption and incompetence. We hope to throw some light, from our particular legal perspective, on Africa's continuing quest for sustainable good governance and development.

In the process of writing, we have incurred many debts of gratitude to our fellow workers in the field of law and policy in Commonwealth Africa and to the institutions which have sustained us during our collective labours. It would be invidious to identify particular individuals, other than to record our warm appreciation of the support and forebearance of Ms Finola O'Sullivan, Ms Jenny Rubio and their colleagues of the Cambridge University Press and of the patience of our respective families.