The role of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in efforts to strengthen the rule of law is attracting increased interest in international development cooperation. From a development perspective, the principal interest in this question is a concern for expanding rights and opportunities for...

This paper examines three systems of courts of justice, each in a different country in the region of South Pacific islands known as Melanesia, where state legal systems have been adopted from former European colonial governments. The systems discussed are, by comparison, 'hybrid', each of them...

A significant proportion of the world's work is done in contexts where the rule of law is absent or severely lacking. This paper describes one such context, that of contemporary Cambodia. Based on a literature review and interviews with key informants the authors find that there are...

This paper explains the ideas and approaches that underpin the World Bank's Justice for the Poor (J4P) program. J4P is an approach to legal empowerment that focuses on mainstreaming sociolegal concerns into development processes, in sectors ranging from community-driven development and mining...

Exploitation of poor villagers by fraudulent development practitioners is a startlingly common occurrence in postwar Sierra Leone. Research conducted by the World Bank's justice for the poor and understanding processes of change in local governance project found that virtually every rural...

This paper takes a detailed look at the relationship today between elders and youths in rural and peri-urban Sierra Leone, and on how that relationship might have changed during and after the country's civil war of the 1990s. It focuses largely, though not exclusively, on political institutions....

The topic of this paper is, in the words of one reviewer, 'one of the most discussed sociological and societal issues in African studies: the relationship between traditional institutions and new institutions'. Often in such discussions, the 'traditional' and 'modern' are framed as if in...

The conflicting relationship between peace and justice is frequently debated in the field of transitional justice. The obligation to prosecute serious crimes can contradict the measures necessary to reestablish peace among society. The predicament gives rise to a similar, though less obvious,...

This paper reviews the World Bank's existing work in access to justice and suggests directions for further Bank engagement in this area. Accesses to justice efforts are grouped here into six categories: court reforms, legal aid, information dissemination and education, alternative dispute...

This paper develops a framework and some hypotheses regarding the impact of local-level, informal legal institutions on three economic outcomes: aggregate growth, inequality, and human capabilities. It presents a set of stylized differences between formal and informal legal justice systems,...