Community-based dispute resolution processes in Kabul City.

Source: (2011) Kabul: The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.

The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)’s Community-Based Dispute
Resolution (CBDR) series was therefore launched in 2006 to support policy and programming
in the field of justice sector reform and rehabilitation. It aimed to do this by providing
in-depth, qualitative knowledge on common dispute types and processes used in dispute
resolution at the community level, principles and sources of legal authority deployed in
these processes, and existing links between state and non-state actors in the management
of disputes. Additionally, the series sought to shed light on issues of gender equity and
human rights protection within CBDR. The series focused its research on rural communities
in eastern, central and northern provinces of Afghanistan to get a sense of the similarities
and differences in community-based resolution practices across the country. This, the final case study of the series, examines CBDR in one neighbourhood of Kabul
City to determine the effects of the urban environment on dispute resolution practices.
Specifically, this study analyses the impact of demographic diversity, exposure to warrelated
violence, patterns of long-term displacement, proximity to state services, and
ongoing social change on the practice, efficacy and legitimacy of CBDR and its links to
state processes and actors. The study analyses how factors unique to the capital and its
urban environment affect the practice of dispute resolution at the local level. By doing so,
it seeks to provide a meaningful basis for comparison with similar studies in more isolated
and homogeneous rural areas.