Реконструируется картина распространения позорящих (устыдительных) наказаний для девушек, совершивших преступления против нравственности (потерявших...

Nearly two decades after South Africa’s democratization, questions of tradition and accountability continue to trouble the polity as more than 14 million black South Africans remain subject to state-recognized, so-called “traditional” leaders – kings, queens, chiefs and regents. This...

In 2008, the Traditional Courts Bill (TCB) was introduced in South Africa’s Parliament to regulate customary courts in place of the apartheid-era Black Administration Act. The TCB has come under wide ranging attack from civil society across the country, including from people based in the...

Despite a large and growing literature on systems of law without coercive central authority, the overwhelmingly dominant view remains that law, as a public good, must be produced by the state. Defense against attempts to subjugate a community is even more widely viewed as a public good and...

While customary law is capable of creating universally binding rules, the rules that govern its formation allow states to gain an exemption from emerging norms of customary law by remaining persistent objectors. This form of objection requires the objecting state to take express action to oppose...

Customary law has been criticized from very different angles. Rational choice theorists claim that what looks like custom is nothing but self-interest. Positivists doubt that anything beyond consent assumes the force of law. In this paper, we adopt an experimental approach to test these claims....