South Sudan: Linking the Chiefs’ Judicial Authority and the Statutory Court System

Abstract

South Sudan is a country in transition that is still struggling with the consequences of the 50-year civil war with its northern neighbour and resurging internal ethnic conflict. The most recent ethnic clashes in South Sudan are evidence that one of the main challenges for the newly independent country in its continued effort in state building is the implementation of a rule-of-law strategy that meets modern human rights standards and incorporates the legal traditions of the many ethnic groups. In a country as ethnically diverse as South Sudan, with its more than 60 different ethnic groups,¹ the role of the different traditional justice systems that exist alongside a weak statutory legal system cannot be underestimated.