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Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2021

Publication Title

Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law

Abstract

This essay conveys past and present legally plural situations across the Global South, highlighting critical issues. It provides readers with a deep sense of legal pluralism and an appreciation of its complexity and the consequences that follow. A brief overview of colonization sets the stage, followed by an extended discussion of colonial indirect rule, which formed the basis for political and legal pluralism. Thereafter, showing the continuity from past to present, I discuss the transformation-invention of customary law, socially embedded village tribunals, enhancement of the power of traditional elites, uncertainty and conflict over land, clashes between customary and religious law and women’s rights and human rights, the recent turn to non-state law by development agencies, and the entrenched structure of legal pluralism. Notwithstanding innumerable variations and changes across locations and over time, the essay shows that legal pluralism across the Global South constitutes an enduring social-historical formation with shared structural features that must be understood on its own terms. It is not a transitional phase, but largely a steady state condition. For reasons I explicate, in most of these locations, unified state legal systems will not come about for generations. The essay is written for scholars, government officials, international development agencies, and law and development theorists and practitioners interested in understanding law in postcolonial societies.

Keywords

Legal Pluralism, Law And Development, Legal Theory, Legal Anthropology, Legal History, Law And Colonization, Customary Law, Women’s Rights, Human Rights, Land Conflict

Publication Citation

Brain Z. Tamanaha, Legal Pluralism Across the Global South: Colonial Origins and Contemporary Consequences, 53 J. of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial L. 168 (2021)

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