Access to Justice and Security Non-State Actors and the Local Dynamics of Ordering
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DIIS CONFERENCE Supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark with additional funding from International Development Law Organization (IDLO) LIST OF ABSTRACTS - PRELIMINARY IIS CONFERENCE Access to Justice and Security Non-State Actors and the Local Dynamics of Ordering November 1-3, 2010 1 Keynote Speakers Justice and Security Architecture in Africa: the plans, the bricks, the purse and the builder Professor Bruce Baker, Coventry University A bricklayer likes to know before beginning a new project, what the client can afford, what bricks are to be used and what the building looks like that is to be constructed. These are essential questions for justice and security development as well. The building blocks on offer are very varied and are often divided into ‘state’ and ‘nonstate’ actors. Is that a fair and useful account (and for whom) or does that confuse and misrepresent the available providers? Then what is the ideal end product that is desired for Africa (and for whom)? Is it a state that holds a monopoly of justice and security provision or are there alternative models of security and justice architecture that look rather different from the West but that might work better in Africa? Then a reality check: are the plans that are being drawn up for Africa, achievable, affordable and what the people of Africa actually want? Finally, have we agreed who is going to be the builder for this development? Bruce Baker is Professor of African Security and the Director of African Studies Centre at Coventry University. He has published several articles and books on non-state policing and has a high international recognition within this field. His research covers African democratisation, governance, policing, security sector reform, popular justice and informal justice. His current research focus is informal and formal policing in post-conflict African states. He has conducted fieldwork in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Seychelles, Liberia and Southern Sudan. his latest book is: Security in Post-conflict Africa: The role of non-state policing (CRC Press, 2009). The Clash of Two Goods: Resolving Tensions between State and Non-State Dispute Resolution in Afghanistan Thomas Barfield, Anthropology, University of Boston Afghanistan has experienced state failure on a number of occasions, but this has not had a catastrophic impact because Afghan society never lost its cohesion. It had a long tradition of resolving disputes, punishing crime and uniting together to preserve their autonomy even during times when formal government institutions were flourishing. Disputes were settled though a system of mediation and arbitration. Crimes were dealt with by imposing a set of commonly accepted principles based on community standards on violators with an emphasis on restorative justice, not punishment. And communities maintained ties of solidarity that superseded both political ideologies and internal differences. When plans for state reconstruction began in 2001, these strengths were overlooked or seen as obstacles to instituting a formal justice system. International advisors lacked knowledge of such systems and Afghan government officials were keen to displace them to increase their own power and authority. Rather than lead to better governance, the clash of the two systems undermined the effective of each. Formal government institution could not gain the legitimacy they need and the decisions rendered by the informal system had no official recognition. This paper argues that in Afghanistan the two systems are compatible and that that each has its own strengths and weaknesses. By analyzing how they could interact effectively, we can make recommendations on how to create a more efficient and legitimate legal system. At the same time, by understanding how the power of international actors and international norms creates pressure to pursue policies that meet with local opposition, we can see state building as a form of political contest over who sets the rules and who has power, asking whether these improve the lives of ordinary citizens in Afghanistan or just imposes new burdens on them. 2 Thomas Barfield is Professor of Anthropology at Boston University and President of the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies. An anthropologist, Barfield conducted ethnographic fieldwork with nomads in northern Afghanistan in the mid 1970s as well as shorter stints in post-Soviet Uzbekistan and Kazakh areas of Xinjiang. His is the author of The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan (1981) and co-author of Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture (1991). Since 2001 his research has focused on problems of law and political development in contemporary Afghanistan. In 2007 Barfield received a Guggenheim Fellowship that supported the completion of his research for his newly published book, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, 2010). Film presentation Law an War in Rural Kenya A film by Professor Suzette Heald, London School of Economics In 1998, a new movement swept through Kuria, in S.W. Kenya with dramatic effect. Cattle raiding fuelled by the increasing presence of guns had led to a situation of total insecurity, with all in fear of the thieves. In April of that year, a group of men in just one location, Bukira East, effected a new organisation merging ideas from the Tanzanian vigilante movement, sungusungu, with their own indigenous assembly, the iritongo. Within a year the movement had spread throughout Kuria and the District as a whole was at peace. This film revisits the iritongo movement ten years later. In telling the story of its origin, and its current operation, it reveals a broad contrast between the areas where the iritongo still operates, though with some difficulty, and those where it has faltered and died. In these latter areas there has been a revival of clan raiding and warfare. The film is observational in style, with the situation described through the words of the participants, emphasizing their agency. There is, thus, extensive use of sub-titles. Suzette Heald is a social anthropologist at the London School of Economics with extensive field research in Africa. Her current research is on a vigilante movement in Kenya and Tanzania and she is in progress of making a film and writing a book on the topic. Plenary Risk Mapping and Analysis in Sudan: the re-ordering of public agendas through multi-actor consultation and information distribution Maximo Halty and Fenja Fasting, CRMA, UNDP The complexity of Sudan’s security, political and socio-economic situation is difficult to overstate. Despite the signing of three peace agreements in the past 5 years, the country still faces a low-intensity, but highly disruptive, conflict in Darfur, as well as heightened political and military tensions in both the East region and Transitional Areas. In addition, the fragility of Sudan is further accentuated by the upcoming referendum on Southern Sudan independence in January 2011. Hence, unless key triggers of instability are mitigated, Africa’s largest country risks returning to armed conflict. The Crisis and Recovery Mapping and Analysis (CRMA) project of UNDP works with both state and non-state actors to carry out localized processes of socio-economic and security risk mapping, which are then coupled with a UN and Government-wide consolidation of geo-referenced information resources. These resources are integrated into a multi-actor process of analysis to support evidence-based, conflict-responsive crisis and recovery planning and coordination. Beyond the immediate value of providing relevant and timely inputs for 3 strategic planning and coordination, it has become increasingly clear that this consultative information collection and analysis process has in and of itself had a noticeable impact on the re-alignment of public recovery and development priorities. By increasing the transparency of the process of public priority-setting, it is helping to give voice to multiple actors -both outside government as well as within it- that have been systematically disenfranchised from the setting of the public sector agenda in Sudan, which is very much at the root of the continued conflictivity. Even rigid authoritarian governments are often far from monolithic. The promotion of a bottom-up, multi-actor, consultative information collection and analysis process focused on crisis and recovery related threats and risks, can have a profound effect in facilitating wider, more complex –and thus ultimately more stable- agreements regarding the public agenda priorities. The conditions on which power and wealth are negotiated shift and previously suppressed voices are given a platform. This type of intervention therefore deserves greater consideration within the post- conflict/crisis stabilization and governance enhancement responses. Reconfiguring the state and non-state actors in making communities safer in Africa: A return to left realism? Monique Marks (University of KwaZulu-Natal), Julian Azzopardi (University of KwaZulu-Natal) and Jennifer Wood (Temple University) In this article we attempt to move beyond ideological and popular ways of understanding the state as a provider of security. We explore what is really taking place in the local governance of security in South Africa and argue for a minimal and minimalist state approach. In so doing, we search for answers to the following question: Who should the public police be in emergent democracies where there is a plurality of policing providers, state and non-state? Drawing on research conducted in the city of Durban this article demonstrates that, to a large extent, policing is being carried out by agents other than the police. In this context, the article articulates a more circumscribed role for the police in a time (and place) of uncertainty, one that is anchored in local structures of strategic planning and regulation. Within such structures, non-state actors should be supported to play meaningful roles in ‘everyday policing’. We explore the challenges and possibilities that such a framework presents in places where states are weak and have questionable legitimacy and capacity.