In the minds of many, the provision of justice and security has long been linked to the state. To ask whether non-state institutions could deliver those services on their own, without the aid of coercive taxation and a monopoly franchise, runs the risk of being branded as naive anarchism or dangerous radicalism. Defenders of the state's monopoly on lawmaking and law enforcement typically assume that any alternative arrangement would favor the rich at the expense of the poor--or would lead to the collapse of social order and ignite a war. Questioning how well these beliefs hold up to scrutiny, this book offers a powerful rebuttal of the received view of the relationship between law and government. The book argues not only that the state is unnecessary for the establishment and enforcement of law, but also that non-state institutions would fight crime, resolve disputes, and render justice more effectively than the state, based on their stronger incentives.

Originally published in 2003, this book addresses the rarely explored subject of the reciprocal relationships between nationalism, nation and state-building, and economic change. Analysis of the economic element in the building of nations and states cannot be confined to Europe, and therefore these diverse yet interlinked case-studies cover all continents. Authors come to contrasting conclusions, some regarding the economic factor as central, while others show that nation-states came into being before the constitution of a national market. The essays leave no doubt that the nation-state is an historical phenonemon and as such is liable to 'expiry' both through the process of globalisation and through the development of a 'cyber-society' which evades state control. By contrast, developments in southeastern Europe, the former USSR, and parts of Africa and the Far East show that building the nation-state has not run its course.

This book explains why no opposition party has been able to offer itself as a sustained challenger in Japan.

Does statelessness necessarily mean anarchy and disorder? Clan elders, religious leaders and businessmen have worked together to provide stability and security in large parts of Somalia. Urban centres continue to suffer violence, political chaos and economic disruption. Do money, international trade and investment survive without a state? Somalia has been without a state, a Ministry of Finance, or a central bank, but the Somali Shilling was more stable during the second half of the 1990s than during the 1980s. Economic agreements with transnational firms and sovereign states go ahead. Do town-dwellers fare as well as pastoralists? With the collapse of the state, herders and traders have benefited from reduced restrictions on movement and there is a booming unofficial export and import trade. Settled populations have fared less well. Do pastoralists care about development and social improvement? Throughout the Horn western-funded development projects have had disastrous results. Nevertheless the Somalis have selectively accepted certain elements; phone and internet services are surprisingly cheap.BR> Published in association with the International African Institute North America: Indiana U Press

This study examines the principles and practices of the Afikpo (Eugbo) Nigeria indigenous justice system in contemporary times. Like most African societies, the Afikpo indigenous justice system employs restorative, transformative and communitarian principles in conflict resolution. This book describes the processes of community empowerment, participatory justice system and how regular institutions of society that provide education, social and economic support are also effective in early intervention in disputes and prevention of conflicts.

This work deals with legal pluralism in an emerging world society. It central thesis is that globalization of law tends to create a decentred law-making process which occurs in multiple sectors of civil society, independently of nation states. Technical standardization, professional rule production, human rights, intra-organizational regulation in multinational enterprises, contracting, arbitration and other institutions of lex mercatoria are forms of rule by private governments, claiming world-wide validity independently of the law of the nation states. They have come into existence not by formal acts of nation states but by strange paradoxical acts of self-validation.

“A brilliant and bracing analysis of the Palestine question and settler colonialism . . . a vital lens into movement lawyering on the international plane.” —Vasuki Nesiah, New York University, founding member of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict’s most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel’s settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel’s military offensives in the Gaza Strip. The Oslo Accord’s two-state solution is now dead letter. Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures—from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza—Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel’s interests than the Palestinians’. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine. “Careful and captivating . . . This book asks that the Palestinian liberation struggle and Jewish-Israeli society each reckon with the impossibility of a two-state future, reimagining what their interests are—and what they could become.” —Amanda McCaffrey, Jewish Currents