Abstract

This essay conveys past and present legally plural situations across the Global South, highlighting critical issues. It provide readers 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, I discuss in order, the transformation-invention of customary law, socially embedded village courts, the enhancement of the power of traditional elites, uncertainty and conflict over land, clashes between customary and religious law and women’s right 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 a distinct, enduring social-historical formation with shared structural features that must be understood on its own terms. The essay is written for scholars, government officials, international development agencies, and law and development theorists and practitioners interested in law in postcolonial societies.

摘要

这篇文章传达了全球南方过去和现在的法律多元化情况，突出了关键问题。它为读者提供了对法律多元化的深刻认识，以及对其复杂性和随之而来的后果的认识。对殖民化的简要概述奠定了基础，然后是对殖民间接统治的扩展讨论，后者构成了政治和法律多元化的基础。此后，我依次讨论了习惯法的改造发明、社会嵌入的乡村法院、传统精英权力的增强、土地的不确定性和冲突、习惯法和宗教法与妇女权利和人权的冲突、最近的发展机构转向非国家法律，以及根深蒂固的法律多元化结构。尽管随着时间和地点的不同有无数的变化和变化，这篇文章表明，全球南方的法律多元化构成了一个独特的、持久的社会历史形态，具有共同的结构特征，必须用自己的术语来理解。这篇文章是为对后殖民社会中的法律感兴趣的学者、政府官员、国际发展机构以及法律和发展理论家和从业者撰写的。