BEYOND LAW N 27

Editors Introduction

The study of informal mechanisms of dispute resolution from community justice in slums to systems of traditional justice within indigenous communitieshas been at the heart of sociology and anthropology of law in the global South for several decades. Indeed, several of the foundational studies of contemporary sociolegal research in the 1970s theorized and empirically documented practices of informal, nonstate justice as a means to criticize legal theorys monolithic conception of law as state law, and to offer instead theories of legal pluralism that now are part of our analytical toolkit. In Latin America, the issue of informal justice also became part of the political agendas of grassroots movements and popular organizations and NGOs. From the viewpoint of these movements and organizations, community-based justice offered excluded populations a grassroots, egalitarian alternative to the biased and inaccessible official system of justice. However, the rise of a new wave of law and development programs in the 1990s now in the form of judicial reform projects funded by multilateral financial agencies marked a temporary shift of academic and political focus away from informal justice and toward state judicial systems. Providing the intellectual basis for these programs, neo-institutional economics emphasized the importance of developing countries getting institutions right notably courts and prosecutorial systems modeled after the U.S. template. Sociolegal scholars and activists in the global South thus found themselves immersed in debates on judicial reform that stood in stark contrast with those on community justice and grassroots empowerment of decades past. Just when many analysts and policymakers had written them off, the issues of informal justice and legal pluralism have made a strong comeback in recent years in academic, policy and activist circles. Indeed, a new wave of sociolegal studies has documented the proliferation of plural legal orders in the context of globalization and the hybrid forms of justice that combine informal and formal mechanisms of dispute resolution. Among these hybrids are such variegated trends as the increasing utilization of informal dispute resolution mechanisms as part and parcel of (or alternatives to) court proceedings, the proliferation of so-called systems of justices of the peace, and the multiplication of alternative systems of justice in the fast-growing slums of the global South the veritable illegal cities that have sprung up as a refuge for those pushed to the margins of megacities in the neoliberal era. The exacerbation of legal pluralism and the spread of informal or hybrid forms of justice stem from pressures on the state and state courts operating at different scales. On the one hand, the globalization of production and the political ascendancy of transnational capital have eroded and reshaped the regulatory power of national states. Rather than a global government, myriad forms of private regulation (or private-public hybrids) have filled the regulatory vacuum left by the gap between global economic processes and national laws. Commonly analyzed under the analytically and politically problematic label of global governance, these legal forms from corporate codes of conduct for labor to international arbitration are distinct from (and oftentimes clash with) formal, state-produced law and justice. On the other hand, strong trends toward political decentralization and the resurgence of local movements and identities resisting global homogenization have

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given rise to new forms of informal law and justice at the local level. While otherwise very different, the rise of indigenous jurisdictions in Latin America, the vindication of the adjudicative power of traditional authorities in Africa, and the spread of community justice in marginalized areas of the global cities of the South are all instances of this trend. From above and from below, therefore, this dual process of glocalization has contributed to the renewed salience of informal justice and legal pluralism. Continuing the tradition of Beyond Law as a leading space of publication and discussion on these topics, this issue offers a rich survey of diverse forms of informal law and justice in a wide array of countries. Maria Paula Meneses analyzes the historical and social roots of traditional forms of dispute resolution in Mozambique. Based on the study of conflicts on witchcraft accusations, Meneses captures the complexity of the goals and social functions of traditional justice and highlights its normative orientation towards reconciliation. Raquel Yrigoyen surveys the rise of a new pluralist constitutionalism in Latin America embodied by the recognition of indigenous rights and systems of justice in constitutions across the region over the last two decades. Edgar Ardila takes stock of contemporary debates on community justice and inquiries into the potential of informal, grassroots forms of conflict resolution for progressive social change in Latin America. By bringing together legal theory and sociology of law, John Larry Rojas offers an insightful analysis of informal systems of justice created by internally displaced communities in Colombia to deal with conflicts arising from the extreme hardships associated with their location in the midst of the countrys civil war. Joo Pedroso and Catarina Trinco tackle one of the key institutional innovations through which the informalization of state justice has recently taken place namely, the rise of lay justices of the peace by comparatively looking at its characteristics and democratic potential in Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Finally, in the Reviews & Interviews section, we include an interview with Alejandro Portes, one of the most prominent Latin American sociologists of the last decades, on the past and future of neoliberalism. Csar A. Rodriguez Garavito Editor

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