A striking new analysis of Myanmar's court system, revealing how the rule of law is 'lexically present but semantically absent'.

This book, conceived in Rangoon, nourished and delivered at the Yale Law School, attempts to study the customary laws of Burma in the context of the country's legal system. Customary laws govern the affairs of the family mainly while codes and precedents designed and developed on the imported British common law system enjoy exclusive control and authority over the remaining legal relationships in society. This volume looks at the legal system in outline and the customary law of the Bur mese family in some detail. The customary laws of other indigenous groups, such as the Shans, the Kachins, the Chins, the Kayah, the Mon and the Arakanese, also need to be studied, restated and appraised, for though the laws are similar there are shades of differences, and in build ing the Union of Burma it is important to build strongly on the simi larities while giving due respect to the differences. It is, therefore, hoped, that this volume will launch a series of studies on the customary laws of the peoples of Burma in a large context and with high aim. There are many needs for continuing research in the field of custom ary law. One is to discover the customs of the people as they really are, not just what they are presumed to be in early legal treatises or in later judicial decisions.

Myanmar's transition to democracy has been marred by violence between Buddhists and Muslims. While the violence originally broke out between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, it subsequently emerged throughout the country, impacting Buddhists and Muslims of many ethnic backgrounds. This article offers background on these so-called "communal conflicts" and the rise and evolution of Buddhist nationalist groups led by monks that have spearheaded anti-Muslim campaigns. The authors describe how current monastic political mobilization can be understood as an extension of past monastic activism, and is rooted in traditional understandings of the monastic community's responsibility to defend the religion, respond to community needs, and guide political decision-makers. The authors propose a counter-argument rooted in Theravada Buddhism to address the underlying anxieties motivating Buddhist nationalists while directing them toward peaceful actions promoting coexistence. Additionally, given that these conflicts derive from wider political, economic, and social dilemmas, the authors offer a prescription of complementary policy initiatives.--Résumé de l'éditeur.

Unlike its Southeast Asian neighbors, Thailand was never colonized by an imperial power. However, Siam (as Thailand was called until 1939) shared a great deal in common with both colonized states and imperial powers: its sovereignty was qualified by imperial nations while domestically its leaders pursued European colonial strategies of juridical control in the Muslim south. The creation of family law and courts in that region and in Siam proper most clearly manifests Siam's dualistic position. Demonstrating the centrality of gender relations, law, and Siam's Malay Muslims to the history of modern Thailand, Subject Siam examines the structures and social history of jurisprudence to gain insight into Siam's unique position within Southeast Asian history. Tamara Loos elaborates on the processes of modernity through an in-depth study of hundreds of court cases involving polygyny, marriage, divorce, rape, and inheritance adjudicated between the 1850s and 1930s. Most important, this study of Siam offers a novel approach to the question of modernity precisely because Siam was not colonized yet was subject to transnational discourses and symbols of modernity. In Siam, Loos finds, the language of modernity was not associated with a foreign, colonial overlord, so it could be deployed both by elites who favored continuation of existing domestic hierarchies and by those advocating political and social change.