How do a legal order and the rule of law develop in a war-torn state? Using his field research in Sudan, the author uncovers how colonial administrators, postcolonial governments and international aid agencies have used legal tools, practices and resources to promote stability and their own visions of the rule of law amid political violence and war in Sudan. Tracing the dramatic development of three forms of legal politics - colonial, authoritarian and humanitarian - this book contributes to a growing body of scholarship on law in authoritarian regimes and on human rights and legal empowerment programs in the Global South. Refuting the conventional wisdom of a legal vacuum in failed states, this book reveals how law matters deeply even in the most extreme cases of states still fighting for political stability.
• This is the first longitudinal study of legal development - by colonial, authoritarian and humanitarian elites - in Sudan • Based on in-depth field research, ethnographic observations and 175 qualitative interviews with government officials, lawyers, judges and activists in Sudan • This book significantly develops the emerging concept of legal politics: how state and non-state actors use legal tools and resources - from building courthouses to promoting human rights - to achieve political, social or economic goals
Contents
1. Lawfare and warfare in Sudan; 2. The colonial path to the rule of law, 1898–1956; 3. Law in a state of crisis, 1956–1989; 4. Authoritarian legal politics and Islamic law, 1989–2011; 5. Law and civil society, 1956–2011; 6. Humanitarian legal politics in an authoritarian state, 2005–2011; 7. The politics of law promotion: a critical appraisal.
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