The rule of law and legal pluralism in development

After decades of disappointing progress in building the rule of law in societies that suffer from poorly functioning legal systems, the development community has turned its attention to legal pluralism. Legal pluralism is a prominent feature in many development contexts, with both negative and positive implications for the rule of law. The negative questions revolve around whether or to what extent the presence of multiple coexisting legal forms hampers or detracts from efforts to build the rule of law. The positive questions revolve around whether alternative legal forms in situations of legal pluralism might satisfy rule of law functions that failing state legal systems are unable to provide. This chapter explores these questions. Two limitations of this exploration - the first involving application and the second involving theory - must be acknowledged at the outset. Rule of law development projects take place around the world in extraordinarily varied situations, each of which is unique. Observations about the interaction between the rule of law and legal pluralism, therefore, can be offered only as broad generalizations. Whether these generalizations apply - and what their concrete implications are - depends on the circumstances at hand. What is relevant to isolated islands in the Pacific, for example, may have no application to rural areas in Africa or to jungles or favelas in Latin America. Nothing in this essay applies everywhere, and for some contexts the themes taken up here will have little bearing. This chapter sets out a framework for thinking about matters, not a formula with concrete application.