Legal Pluralism in Ethiopia

Being a home to more than 80 ethnic groups, Ethiopia has to balance normative diversity with efforts to implement state law across its territory.
This volume explores the co-existence of state, customary, and religious legal forums from the perspective of legal practitioners and local justice seekers. It shows how the various stakeholders' use of negotiation, and their strategic application of law can lead to unwanted confusion, but also to sustainable conflict resolution and innovative new procedures and hybrid norms. The book thus generates important knowledge on the necessary conditions for stimulating a cooperative co-existence between different legal systems.

Susanne Epple (PhD), born in 1968, is a social anthropologist and research affiliate at the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt/Main. She has undertaken extensive fieldwork in Southern Ethiopia for 25 years, and has taught and published extensively on issues related to gender and age in agropastoral societies, cultural contact and change, hereditary status groups, and legal pluralism.
Getachew Assefa (PhD), born in 1973, is Associate Professor of Law at Addis Ababa University. He has published widely on issues related to minority rights, federalism and constitutional litigation, and legal pluralism. His areas of interest include comparative constitutional law and federalism, human rights, traditional governance and justice systems, as well as law and religion.