Source: (2000) Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution. 15:795.
As Laurie Arsenault notes at the outset, many have characterized the Anglo-American adversarial system of criminal justice as unproductive and dissatisfying. In search of new approaches, some have turned to various schemes of alternative dispute resolution, but have found these also flawed. Arsenault then proposes that the archaeologist would suggest a different strategy for understanding and improving the future of Anglo-American justice – namely, an excavation. On this basis, she employs the metaphor of an archaeological dig to uncover evidence from a form of tribal justice still in existence today- Navajo tribal peacemaking. Specifically, Arsenault discusses ‘artifacts’ from her ‘excavation’ of the Navajo Peacemaker Court that she believes can serve as a model for improving Anglo-American child custody cases in a non-adversarial manner.
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