Professor Paul Kirgis has a new article on SSRN, entitled, Status and Contract in an Emerging Democracy: The Evolution of Dispute Resolution in Ghana. The article has been accepted for publication in the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution. Here’s the abstract:
Ghana is one of the developing world’s success stories. The first sub-Saharan colony to gain independence, it is a stable democracy experiencing sustained economic growth. Yet as Ghana reaches for the material gains of participation in modern commercial life, its dual legal systems—the system of customary adjudication by traditional authorities and the formal court system—have come under increasing pressure. New legal developments have truncated the authority of traditional decision-makers, while an overburdened court system lacks the resources to fill the resulting adjudicative gaps. To solve the problem, Ghana is now experimenting with a system of quasi-public dispute resolution, including contractual arbitration and court-connected mediation. If successful, this experiment could provide a model for other emerging democracies seeking to promote greater access to justice while integrating traditional and national adjudicative structures.
Paul Kirgis
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