Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The ‘state-building enterprise’: Legal doctrine, progress narratives and managerial governance
- 2 Democratisation, state-building and politics as technology
- 3 International law, human rights and the transformative occupation of Iraq
- 4 Defining democracy in international institutions
- 5 Democracy and legitimation: Challenges in the reconstitution of political processes in Afghanistan
- 6 Impossible expectations? The UN Security Council's promotion of the rule of law after conflict
- 7 Legal pluralism and the challenge of building the rule of law in post-conflict states: A case study of Timor-Leste
- 8 From paper to practice: The role of treaty ratification post-conflict
- 9 Selective universality? Human-rights accountability of the UN in post-conflict operations
- 10 ‘Security starts with the law’: The role of international law in the protection of women's security post-conflict
- 11 Grappling in the Great Lakes: The challenges of international justice in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda
- Conclusion: Hope and humility for weavers with international law
- Select Bibliography
- Index
7 - Legal pluralism and the challenge of building the rule of law in post-conflict states: A case study of Timor-Leste
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The ‘state-building enterprise’: Legal doctrine, progress narratives and managerial governance
- 2 Democratisation, state-building and politics as technology
- 3 International law, human rights and the transformative occupation of Iraq
- 4 Defining democracy in international institutions
- 5 Democracy and legitimation: Challenges in the reconstitution of political processes in Afghanistan
- 6 Impossible expectations? The UN Security Council's promotion of the rule of law after conflict
- 7 Legal pluralism and the challenge of building the rule of law in post-conflict states: A case study of Timor-Leste
- 8 From paper to practice: The role of treaty ratification post-conflict
- 9 Selective universality? Human-rights accountability of the UN in post-conflict operations
- 10 ‘Security starts with the law’: The role of international law in the protection of women's security post-conflict
- 11 Grappling in the Great Lakes: The challenges of international justice in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda
- Conclusion: Hope and humility for weavers with international law
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The international community currently champions the concept of the rule of law as the key to securing ongoing peace and stability in post-conflict states. Within this framework, state institutions, particularly state legal institutions, have an ostensibly central role in providing the local population with a non-violent and accessible path to resolving disputes. Application of the rule of law becomes complicated, however, where there is legal pluralism: a number of legal systems operating in the same geographical space. In many post-conflict states the local population often prefers to use local law and local institutions rather than state law and state institutions because they may consider the latter to be obscure, inaccessible or irrelevant.
At a broad level the rule of law aims to prevent abuse of power, but the means of achieving this depends on the particular context. The rule of law might be pursued and institutionalised in a variety of ways depending on the situation; there is no particular set of institutions that must be established for its existence. Regardless of the specific context, however, state law and state institutions remain at the forefront of the rule-of-law enterprise because the concept is focused on the delimitation of state power.
Establishing state law and state institutions as providing the best and natural path to justice is a tall order in many parts of the Asia-Pacific region due to strong legal pluralism.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Role of International Law in Rebuilding Societies after ConflictGreat Expectations, pp. 157 - 176Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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