Project Location: Managed from IDLO headquarters (Rome) with activities in Namibia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda, Rwanda, Somalia, Liberia and Papua New Guinea

Project Duration: Two years (24 months)

Program Description:

This research program aims to expand the knowledge base regarding the relationship between the operation of customary justice systems and the legal empowerment of poor and marginalized populations, and identify entry points and tools of engagement for working with customary justice systems to strengthen legal empowerment. Such knowledge will be generated through a number of individual research projects based in Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Liberia and Uganda. These research projects seek to evaluate programmatic interventions designed to enhance legal empowerment through improved operation of customary justice systems with a view to collecting empirical data on the effectiveness of such approaches, lessons learned and best practices. The results will be brought together in two publications that will be disseminated among international and national legal practitioners, country specialists and development actors working in the areas of customary justice and/or legal empowerment.

Partnerships:

This program is being implemented by the IDLO Unit for Research, Policy and Strategic Initiatives in partnership with the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and development, Leiden University.

Central research questions:

As described below, this project is composed of a number of individual research projects, each of which has central and subsidiary research questions (see individual concept notes). The central research questions pertaining to the wider research project are:

• How might customary justice systems be engaged with to strengthen the legal empowerment of poor and marginalized populations?
• How can customary justice systems be used as tools of legal empowerment?
• How can customary justice systems be strengthened while at the same time not cementing or formalizing the negative aspects which operate to limit the legal empowerment of users?

Project components: 

1. An empirically-driven research study in Namibia to evaluate interventions of external actors aimed at enhancing the legal empowerment of users of customary justice systems (particularly women).
2. Six action-based field research studies aimed at gaining a better understanding of the relationship between customary justice and the legal empowerment of users, how customary justice systems might be used as tools of legal empowerment and the identification and evaluation of possible entry points and activities for engaging with customary justice systems with a view to strengthening the legal empowerment of users.
3. Publication of an edited volume focusing on entry-points for legal empowerment initiatives and analyses of interventions aimed at improving customary justice.
4. Preparation of a Practitioner’s Manual to working with customary justice systems with a view to improving legal empowerment comprising, inter alia, programmatic entry points, lessons learned and best practices.
5. International conferences (2 locations) bringing together international practitioners with a view to presenting research findings.

For further information about the project's components

Project Contacts:

Erica Harper
Chris Morris
Janine Ubink