The Bedouin Judge, the Mufti, and the Chief Islamic Justice: Competing Legal Regimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

This article examines competing legal frameworks in dispute resolutionin the occupied territories, against the background of weakening central authority, bitter political rivalries, and increasing insecurity on the ground. Two case studies from 2005 are presented — a killing in Gaza and an attempted sexual assault in the West Bank — where the involved parties had recourse to three distinct but overlapping bodies of law, not all of which were part of the formal Palestinian legal system: statutory law, Islamic law, and customary (or tribal) law. The resolution of these cases, while shedding light on the intersection of local politics and alternative legal systems, underscores the challenges of forging a united legal system in a situation of occupation, weak government, and heterogeneous legal heritage

Women and Muslim Family Laws in Arab States

A number of Arab states have recently either codified Muslim family law for the first time, or have issued amendments or new laws which significantly impact the statutory rights of women as wives, mothers and daughters. In Women and Muslim Family Laws in Arab States Lynn Welchman examines women's rights in Muslim family laws in Arab states across the Middle East while also surveying the public debates surrounding the issues. The author considers these new laws alongside older statutes to comment on the patterns and dynamics of change both in the texts of the laws, and in the processes through by which they are drafted and issued. She draws on original legal texts and explanatory statements as well as on extensive secondary literature particular to certain states for an insight into practice, and on; interventions by women's rights organizations and other parties to the debate in the press and in advocacy materials. The discussions are set in the contemporary global context that 'internationalises' the domestic and regional debates. The book considers laws in states from the Gulf to North Africa in regard to their approaches to issues of codification processes and issues of and of registration, capacity and guardianship in marriage, polygyny, the marital relationship, divorce and child custody. It has a full bibliography and includes an annex providing translated extracts of the laws under examination