Indigenous justice and the right to a fair trial

Corradi ’ s analysis of how the right to a fair trial may be interpreted cross-culturally suggests that areas of tension between indigenous procedural norms and mainstream interpretations of this right may open windows of opportunity for exchange and collaboration between state and indigenous authorities, which may strengthen both indigenous and state legal orders..

Advancing human rights in legally plural Africa: the role of development actors in the justice sector

Report of PhD research examining the role of justice sector aid in sub-Saharan Africa regarding the relationship between human rights and local legal orders. At the normative level, the research explores how socio-legal theory on legal pluralism and human rights’ cross-contextual implementation may inform the practice of development actors in the justice sector. Based on case studies in Sierra Leone and Mozambique, the research applies this body of knowledge to the analysis of empirical data on development actors’ policies and interventions. The conclusion argues that the following issues deserve particular attention: the adoption of a users’ perspective regarding which local justice providers are targeted by policies and interventions, consideration of how different modes of dispute processing relate to the implementation of human rights, engagement with local knowledge and a critical approach to human rights cross-contextual application

Introduction : human rights and legal pluralism : four research agendas

In this volume, we interrogate how human rights law and practice acquire meaning in contexts of legal pluralism, and influence interactions that are subject to regulation by more than one normative regime. Legal pluralism refers to the coexistence of more than one legal order in a particular field of social relations. The concept denotes a plurality of laws and/or mechanisms for processing disputes stemming from different sources of legitimation, such as the state, religion or custom, which operate within a same sociopolitical, temporal and geographical space... As in the case of human rights, legal pluralism also has a ‘ legal ’ and a ‘ social ’ face, or what we would call normative and empirical dimensions

International actors and traditional justice in Sub-Saharan Africa :policies and interventions in transitional justice and justice sector aid

Due to a number of important differences between transitional justice and justice sector aid, this book explored how international actors address ‘traditional justice’ in these fields in two distinct parts, which has led to separate analyses. Justice sector aid is often part of broader development cooperation programmes, which may or may not take place in a ost-conflict country. Transitional justice processes are part of conflict-related international interventions, such as peacebuilding programmes, which are often implemented before the wheels of more longterm development cooperation programmes are set in motion. Chronologically speaking, both kinds of programmes – support for transitional justice and justice sector aid – often do not run parallel, although there can be overlaps. It also turns out that the international actors are not necessarily the same. Although in principle the same donor countries are involved, justice sector aid is often provided by bilateral or multilateral development organisations, while transitional justice interventions are more often – but certainly not exclusively – initiatives of specific agencies aimed at post-conflict reconstruction, which are established by several donor countries. Although respect for human rights is heavily emphasised in both domains, policy and interventions regarding transitional justice also need to take international norms regarding the criminal prosecution of international crimes into account. In spite of these differences, this concluding chapter formulates a number of mutual findings and recommendations. First, it discusses common elements at the level of policies, then it identifies a number of trends regarding interventions, and finally it examines the way in which linternational actors handle the tension between traditional justice and human rights

A review of literature on children's rights and legal pluralism

This paper reviews and reflects upon the literature in which children's rights and legal pluralism stand at the core. This scholarship has mainly addressed three research questions: how global children's rights standards interrelate with local normative orders and practices; how children as well as justice providers navigate legally plural orders; and how legal pluralism interplays with social change and the realisation of children's rights. As regards research topics, intra-family relations have received more scholarly attention than the position of children in the wider society. Even though, often implicitly, a variety of theoretical approaches may be discerned, particularly regarding the conceptualisation of children's rights (e.g. as semi-autonomous or static) and legal pluralism (e.g. as dichotomous or multi-level). In the conceptualisation of children and childhood, a social constructionist approach is predominant. On this basis, we formulate a number of suggestions for future research. It is concluded that further developing the subfield of children's rights and legal pluralism is worthwhile, not only because of the specificity of the knowledge needed, but also because this may deepen our understanding of the interplay between legal pluralism and human rights more generally

Traditioneel recht en internationale actoren in Sub-Sahara Afrika: beleid en interventies op het vlak van 'transitional justice' en ontwikkelingshulp aan de justitiesector

Dit boek onderzoekt hoe internationale actoren in Sub-Sahara Afrika omgaan met traditionele rechtsinstellingen en mechanismen voor geschillenbeslechting in het kader van transitional justice en ontwikkelingshulp aan de justitiesector. Daartoe werden het beleid en de interventies van internationale actoren in zes landen (Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Oeganda, Sierra Leone en Zambia) ganalyseerd. Donoren blijken geen specifiek beleid te hebben inzake het gebruik van traditionele machanismen in transitional justice en laten zich vooral leiden door het belang van lokaal eigenaarschap en respect voor mensenrechten, hetgeen tot spanningen leidt. In ontwikkelingshulp aan de justitiesector is er al wat meer aandacht voor traditioneel recht, alhoewel dit beperkt blijft tot officiële traditioneelrechtelijke structuren, terwijl interventies inzake onofficieel recht aan actoren van het maatschappelijke middenveld worden overgelaten. Het boek analyseert de problemen die hieruit voortvloeien en formuleert voor elk domein en voor beide domeinen samen een reeks aanbevelingen voor toekomstige interventies

African perspectives on tradition and justice

This volume aims to produce a better understanding of the relationship between tradition and justice in Africa. It presents contributions of six African scholars related to current international discourses on access to justice and human rights and on the localisation of transitional justice. The contributions suggest that access to justice and appropriate, context-specific transitional justice strategies need to consider diversity and legal pluralism. In this sense, they all stress that dialogical approaches are the way forward. Whether it is in the context of legal reforms, transitional processes in post-war societies or the promotion of human rights in general, all contributors accentuate that it is by means of cooperation, conversation and cross-fertilization between different legal realities that positive achievements can be realized. The contributions in this book illustrate the perspectives on this dialectal process from those operating on the ground, and more specifically form Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Malawi, South-Africa, Uganda and Rwanda,. Obviously, the contributions in this volume do not provide the final outcome of the debate. Rather, they are part of it

Power and rights in the community: paralegals as leaders in women's legal empowerment in Tanzania

What can an analysis of power in local communities contribute to debates on women’s legal empowerment and the role of paralegals in Africa? Drawing upon theories of power and rights, and research on legal empowerment in African plural legal systems, this article explores the challenges for paralegals in facilitating women’s access to justice in Tanzania, which gave statutory recognition to paralegals in the Legal Aid Act 2017. Land conflicts represent the single-biggest source of local legal disputes in Tanzania and are often embedded in gendered land tenure relations. This article argues that paralegals can be effective actors in women’s legal empowerment where they are able to work as leaders, negotiating power relations and resisting the forms of violence that women encounter as obstacles to justice. Paralegals’ authority will be realised when their role is situated within community leadership structures, confirming their authority while preserving their independence

Can legal pluralism advance human rights? How development actors can contribute

This article discusses how international development actors providing aid to the justice sector in legally plural contexts can support reforms to the normative framework for legal pluralism that contribute to advancing human rights. Based on the case of Mozambique, the article argues that reforms to the normative framework for legal pluralism should be grounded on empirical realities of legal pluralism and their human rights implications. The article suggests that international development actors can contribute to this end at the level of process. This can be done by financing empirical studies on legal pluralism and human rights, and by facilitating informed and participatory dialogue to define policies and legislation

Justice sector aid in legally plural Africa

In order to understand the context in which development actors operate and the nature of their interventions regarding local legal orders in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is necessary to sketch out two issues. On the one hand, a number of common threads running across the justice landscpaes of the continent, including a brief overview of how historical developments affected current configurations of legal pluralism, some of the features that are usually associated with an 'African approach' to justice, and how local legal orders relate to human rights. And on the other, the background of justice sector aid and human rights assistance in this region as well as the kind of policies and interventions that international development actors support in the area of legal pluralism and human rights