The on-going dialectic of Muslim desires regarding the rules of Islam ('Sharia'), followed by Western responses and, in turn, Muslim counter-responses, is what creates the dynamic that makes up ... Show moreThe on-going dialectic of Muslim desires regarding the rules of Islam ('Sharia'), followed by Western responses and, in turn, Muslim counter-responses, is what creates the dynamic that makes up ‘Sharia in the West’. This article discusses the third tier of the Sharia-dialectic, that is the manners in which Muslims respond (in terms of Sharia) to the Western responses regarding Sharia. It will be shown that the Muslim responses are quite diverse and at time squite innovative. This sheds a new light on our understanding of 'Sharia'. Show less
With governance increasingly regarded as co-governance, states’ capacity to steer, correct, and discipline a wide range of self-governing actors becomes crucial for states’ effectiveness,... Show moreWith governance increasingly regarded as co-governance, states’ capacity to steer, correct, and discipline a wide range of self-governing actors becomes crucial for states’ effectiveness, efficiency, and democracy. This article investigates that capacity and the relationship between formal institutions and customary self-governance in areas of limited statehood. In South Sudan, the field of land governance can be regarded as an area of limited statehood. As land relations are closely connected to clan structures and intra-familial relationships, customary norms and institutions enjoy great legitimacy and are an important locus of local land governance and dispute resolution. The South Sudanese government has promulgated legal provisions for equal rights to property and inheritance that clash head-on with customary notions of gender roles in the family and the preservation of family land. By focusing on the case of women’s land rights in South Sudan, combining literature study with data from exploratory fieldwork in two South Sudanese towns, this article aims to reflect on the cohabitation of customary and formal norms and values and the role formal legal and administrative systems, in areas of limited statehood, can and do play in boundary setting for customary self-governance. Show less
Lawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka: Navigating Pluralities marks a break in understanding the history of Roman-Dutch law in Sri Lanka. Methodologically, it challenges socio-legal studies that concentrate... Show moreLawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka: Navigating Pluralities marks a break in understanding the history of Roman-Dutch law in Sri Lanka. Methodologically, it challenges socio-legal studies that concentrate on major jurisdictional conflicts alone, emphasizing the lived experience of everyday practices of judicial forums. It uncovers the navigation of plural practices in the Landraad, a judicial forum set up by the Dutch East India Company in seventeenth-century Sri Lanka. A choice of laws came into play in that forum, that choice being significant at varying degrees for different areas of the law such as evidence, inheritance, land, and marriage law. While there was inevitable conflict, the local normative order was as much a social fact for the early colonial rulers as Roman-Dutch law. This is contrary to the received wisdom of the ages that Roman-Dutch law was imposed on the Sinhalese of the maritime provinces under Dutch control. When translated into everyday lives, such adoption of plural practices could rebound on coloniser and colonised in unexpected ways, revealing the complexities of colonial law in practice. Show less
This book discusses the dynamic intersection of three bodies of law; adat, Aceh Shari’a and national penal law, and the institutions applying them. It focuses on how these address public morality... Show moreThis book discusses the dynamic intersection of three bodies of law; adat, Aceh Shari’a and national penal law, and the institutions applying them. It focuses on how these address public morality and criminal offences of a sexual nature as they play out in the Gayonese community of Central Aceh dan Bener Meriah districts, Indonesia.The author argues that these three legal systems have complemented and become alternatives to one another. The state, non-state legal actors and adat officials observe certain limits of each legal system and shop the forums available or apply legal differentiation. Among the actors involved, the police is the most influential in directing the use of the three legal systems. They decide which legal system suited best for the victims’, offenders’ and their own interest and they are the bridge between legal systems in the pluralism of penal law in Aceh. These legal developments in Gayo suggest that state recognition of non-state law (adat law) as part of the state legal system may give a high degree of autonomy to adat institutions. This goes against the frequent claim that recognition of adat always leads to more control by the state. Show less
In the recent international campaigns against child marriage, there is a puzzle of agency: while international human rights institutions celebrate when girls exercise their agency not to marry,... Show moreIn the recent international campaigns against child marriage, there is a puzzle of agency: while international human rights institutions celebrate when girls exercise their agency not to marry, they do not recognize their agency to marry. ‘Child marriage’, defined as “any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age”, is considered always forced, assuming that children are not capable of consenting to marriages. In order to re-examine, reflect, and discuss this approach to agency, this dissertation offers empirical evidence of child marriage, based on findings from the author’s fieldwork in Indonesia. Why children marry and how this practice both informs, and is treated within, multiple competing normative frameworks in place? The dissertation starts from analysing child marriage discourse at the international level, moves to discuss the political contestation over child marriage at the national level (Indonesia), and then investigates child marriage as a social practice on the Indonesian island of Bali.This is a socio-legal study of international human rights, which contributes to the scholarly field of human rights and children’s rights by using ideas from the other disciplines in social science. Show less
In recent years much jurisprudential affection has coalesced around the concept of the Anthropocene. International lawyers have enlisted among the ranks of humanities and social science authors... Show moreIn recent years much jurisprudential affection has coalesced around the concept of the Anthropocene. International lawyers have enlisted among the ranks of humanities and social science authors embracing this proposed scientific time category, and putting it to work. This essay draws on sources from a range of fields including legal anthropology and critical legal theory in re-examining the reception of the Anthropocene in international law, focusing on its mythical qualities. We demonstrate how the Anthropocene both reinforces and meshes perfectly with the three narrative pillars of contemporary international environmental law: evolutionary progress; universal evaluations of nature and constructions of legal subjectivity; and legal monism. The Anthropocene, like few ideas in modern scholarship, is quite expressly a tale of origins explaining and legitimating its narrators’ place in the universe. Joining signposts such as The Tragedy of the Commons, the Myth of the Anthropocene embeds collective memories eclipsing the need to reconsider complex and contested histories in understanding the contemporary roles of law in mediating people’s relations with nature. In response, we call for a more inclusive account of environmental law that draws on diversity rather than universality, with particular sensitivity to those perspectives that are inadvertently excluded from the Anthropocene discourse. Show less
This dissertation points out the stark inequalities of segregated criminal justice in nineteenth-century Java and analyses this unequal system in practice, shown by an actor-focused approach... Show moreThis dissertation points out the stark inequalities of segregated criminal justice in nineteenth-century Java and analyses this unequal system in practice, shown by an actor-focused approach and through a framework of legal pluralities. Ravensbergen searched for the conflicts occurring around the green table of the 'pluralistic courts'(landraden and ommegaande rechtbanken) where the non-European population was tried by Javanese and Dutch court members, and Islamic and Chinese legal advisors. The pluralistic courts, the only places in Java where all regional power structures met and actively worked together, were courtrooms of many conflicts. The courts were also in interaction, and conflict, with other state institutions, together all furthering the project of colonial state formation. By taking this approach, Ravensbergen shows how it was not only inequality, but also uncertainty and injustice, that were central to colonial criminal justice imposed on the local population. Show less
This thesis discusses the negotiation of custom in the Landraad, a judicial forum set up by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka. The Landraad had a majority of VOC... Show moreThis thesis discusses the negotiation of custom in the Landraad, a judicial forum set up by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka. The Landraad had a majority of VOC officials and a subordinate minority of local headmen. It was a space in which agency was multifarious. The nuances of everyday practice as studied here reveal both rejection and manipulation by local actors. This in turn informs us of everyday life in early-modern colonialism. A choice of laws came into play, that choice being significant at varying degrees for different areas of the law such as evidence, inheritance, land and marriage law. Based on over a hundred cases brought forward by men and women from the Galle district in southern Sri Lanka, the lived experience of legal pluralism is emphasised. This thesis adds an empirical study and the insights of socio-legal studies of legal pluralism to the existing literature on Roman-Dutch law in Sri Lanka. While there was inevitable conflict, in practice the local normative order was as much a social fact for the early colonial rulers as Roman-Dutch law. Show less
