Constitutionalism and customary laws in Solomon Islands

Constitutionalism in Solomon Islands is dominated by the written Constitution, which imports a Westminster system and the common law tradition. However, as in other jurisdictions where customary communities are strong, constitutionalism involves more than state institutions and mechanisms. At independence, Solomon Islands proclaimed an allegiance to custom in its Constitution. As a consequence of this, and its colonial history, it has a plural legal system wherein State laws co-exist with customary laws. In this context, the challenge for the idea of constitutionalism may come not only from international developments, but also from the domestic sphere. This Chapter argues that, rather than being challenged by limits imposed at an international or supranational level, governmental power is being challenged by local initiatives designed to promote the authority of traditional leaders and the customary laws which they promulgate. It commences with some background on Solomon Islands and an overview of its systems of law and government to give context to the discussion. It then proceeds to explore the balance of relations in different spheres of positive law, both generally and in respect of judicial review, freedom of contract, and the hierarchy of norms. Discussion then moves to the dynamics of the relationship between different aspects of positive law. The place of international law in Solomon Islands, the approach of legal actors, resolution of conflicts and transconstitutional dialogue, and evolution of approach to constitutionalism and conflicting norms are considered. The last part of the chapter comments on the failure of legal reasoning and jurisprudence to evolve

Gender-based violence: Case studies from the Global South

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a global policy issue with significant social, economic and personal consequences. The burden of violence against women and girls is distributed unequally, with rates of gender violence significantly higher in low to middle income countries of the Global South. Yet the bulk of global research on gender violence is based on the experiences of urban communities in high-income English-speaking countries mainly from the Global North. This body of research typically takes the experience of women from Anglophone countries as the norm from which to theorise and frame theories and research of gender-based violence. Our chapter problematises theories that the privilege women in the Global North as the empirical referents of ‘everyday violence’ (Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo, 2016). At the same time however it is important to resist homogenisng the violence experienced by women across diverse societies in the global south. This orientalist vision of oppressed subaltern Southern women is directly contrasted with an ideal rights bearing feminine subject from the Anglophone countries of the global north (Mohanty, 2012). This binary discourse exaggerates the differences and obfuscates the similarities of VAWG across Northern and Southern borders and reproduces images of women in the Global South as unfortunate victims of ‘other’ cultures (Durham, 2015; Narayan, 1997). This chapter contrasts three examples, the policing of family violence in Indigenous communities in Australia; Image Based Abuse in Singapore; and the policing of gender violence in the Pacific as a way of concretising the argument