Law's Fragile State: Colonial, Authoritarian, and Humanitarian Legacies in Sudan(Cambridge Studies in Law and Society (Hardcover))

How do a legal order and the rule of law develop in a war-torn state? Using his field research in Sudan, the author uncovers how colonial administrators, postcolonial governments and international aid agencies have used legal tools and resources to promote stability and their own visions of the rule of law amid political violence and war in Sudan. Tracing the dramatic development of three forms of legal politics - colonial, authoritarian and humanitarian - this book contributes to a growing body of scholarship on law in authoritarian regimes and on human rights and legal empowerment programs in the Global South. Refuting the conventional wisdom of a legal vacuum in failed states, this book reveals how law matters deeply even in the most extreme cases of states still fighting for political stability.

Review :
Ambitious, passionate, and eminently readable Law s Fragile State challenges the presumption that law is all but absent in war-torn contexts like that of Sudan... [it] pushes the boundaries of law and society scholarship on several fronts at once, and does so with deftness and clarity. - Tamir Moustafa, Author of The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt" Insightful, sober, and forward looking analysis of the practice of human rights in the harsh realities of violent conflict and moral ambivalence. This is how to uphold principled commitment to human rights, through critical pragmatic optimism, not unrealistic naivety or futile mutual aggression. - Abdullahi An-Na'im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, Emory University" Massoud offers a meticulous examination of the multiple roles, uses, and users of law in and by all of Sudan s several successive fragile states ... In such contexts, well-meant interventions to equip citizens with legal tools to secure their rights are found often to lend strength precisely to those who deny them. The message is of broad implication. Nothing is simple, nothing unidimensional. This is a bracing and important book, humane and wise, in domains where neither humanity nor wisdom has been conspicuous. - Martin Krygier, Gordon Samuels Professor of Law and Social Theory, The University of New South Wales" "A remarkable piece of socio-legal scholarship [made] into an incredibly readable story." Law and Society Association award citation "A meticulous examination of the multiple roles, uses, and users of law in and by all of Sudan's several successive 'fragile states' This is a bracing and important book, humane and wise, in domains where neither humanity nor wisdom has been conspicuous." Martin Krygier, Gordon Samuels Professor of Law and Social Theory, University of New South Wales" "Ambitious, passionate, and eminently readable - Law's Fragile State challenges the presumption that law is all but absent in war-torn contexts like that of Sudan [it] pushes the boundaries of law and society scholarship on several fronts at once." Tamir Moustafa, author of The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt" "An important and original contribution groundbreaking overdue and much needed." Lutz Oette, Journal of African Law" "Insightful, sober, and forward-looking analysis of the practice of human rights in the harsh realities of violent conflict and moral ambivalence." Abdullahi An-Na'im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, Emory University "Insightful, sober, and forward looking analysis of the practice of human rights in the harsh realities of violent conflict and moral ambivalence. This is how to uphold principled commitment to human rights, through critical pragmatic optimism, not unrealistic naivety or futile mutual aggression." --Dr. Abdullahi An-Na'im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, Emory University "Massoud offers a meticulous examination of the multiple role, uses, and users of law in and by all of Sudan s several successive 'fragile states'... In such contexts, well-meant interventions to equip citizens with legal tools to secure their rights are found often to lend strength precisely to those who deny them. The message is of broad implication. Nothing is simple, nothing unidimensional. This is a bracing and important book, humane and wise, in domains where neither humanity nor wisdom has been conspicuous." --Martin Krygier,, Faculty of Law, The University of New South Wales