Conclusions
While much of the international community's efforts to work with informal justice in Afghanistan may have been well intentioned, the foregoing critiques suggest that they have not always been well informed. Often they have done as much harm as good and, at a minimum, may have wasted significant amounts of much needed donor funds. his does not mean that efforts to work with the informal justice system are inherently flawed, but it does mean that the international community must be more cognizant in the future about issues such as those highlighted in this report. his includes following programmatic guiding principles that have proven effective in the past, such as being sensitive to local politics and ensuring local buy-in. It also includes ensuring greater collective efforts to avoid the systematic and paradigmatic issues that have routinely led to mismatched, misguided, or conflicting goal setting, or to flawed and often harmful interventions in local communities.
Given the political complexities of the informal justice sector, as a general principle programs must first ensure that they are doing no harm. his means, in particular, avoiding interventions that disrupt subtle political balances and undermine informal processes that were already working effectively. One of the most worrying issues attached to international programs that work with informal leaders and dispute resolution is the Taliban's campaign of targeted assassinations of local leaders, particularly those who are known to have worked with the international community. In one case, shortly after the establishment of an ASOP shura in Helmand, multiple key members of the shura were killed-each symbolically shot in the mouth. While it is difficult to determine whether these leaders were assassinated because of their affiliation with the ASOP project or because of their general influence in the community, which posed a perceived or real threat to insurgents, these killings demonstrate the difficulties and moral dilemmas of working with local leaders, particularly in unstable areas. he symbolism in how they were killed sent a clear warning to others who might consider talking with the international community.
Another major problem with the international community's approach to local governance, which affects informal dispute resolution, is the tendency to set up new community councils when external actors are unhappy with existing local bodies. his tendency has created a large amount of tension within the Afghan national government, between the MRRD, which runs the NSP, and the IDLG, which ran ASOP and handles various district-level governance issues. In this case, international donors are responsible for increasing the inefficiency of local governance and creating tensions within the government of Afghanistan. On a local level, these bodies may overlap with numerous development, religious, and other councils. Frequently they conflict, ultimately undermining the authority of one another