Search results

Dominy reviews 'Land, Custom and Practice in the South Pacific' edited by R. Gerard Ward and Elizabeth Kingdon.

Land, Custom and Practice in the South Pacific, R. Gerard Ward and Elizabeth Kingdon. eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 290 pp.

Uganda has one of the highest numbers of reported AIDS cases in sub-Saharan Africa. This is mainly due to a number of historical and political factors. The government of Uganda has openly dealt with the AIDS crisis since 1986 but before that the socio-economic and political chaos in the country created an ideal situation for HIV to spread widely in both rural and urban areas. The HIV infection rate varies among different population subgroups: the 1987/88 sero-survey showed variations among regions and between rural and urban areas. In the most urbanized central region, 21.1 per cent of urban and 12.1 per cent of rural residents were estimated to be HIV-positive. In Western Region which is less developed than Central, 29 per cent of urban and 5.7 per cent of rural residents were infected. In contrast, in the remote and rural West Nile Region, 7.7 per cent of urban and 6.6 per cent of rural residents were HIV-positive (Asedri 1989). There is now a sizeable body of research in Uganda on sexual behaviour, social networking and HIV transmission, including sexual partner studies and studies of changing sexual behaviour in response to the epidemic (e.g. Berkley et al. 1990; Serwadda et al. 1992; Konde-Lule, Musagara and Musgrave 1993; Mulder et al. 1994). However, there is a need for more research on the impact of AIDS on the individual, the family and the community. Little is currently known about changes in households, extended families and their coping mechanisms, and the impact of AIDS on future productivity at the family level and within the community. The household is the basic unit of subsistence production in Uganda, and its existence and that of the extended family system within which it is embedded has enabled the society to weather the many stresses of war and social dislocation which have occurred in the country for over two decades. It is anticipated, however, that the increased stress occasioned by AIDS will be too much for the extended family systems to bear in the long run.

"This book explores the indigenous peace cultures of the major ethnic groups in South Sudan (Dinka, Nuer, Anuak and Acholi) and analyses their contribution to resolving the civil war. The book utilises qualitative narrative inquiry ethnographic methods to explore the indigenous institutions and customs (customary laws, beliefs and practices) employed in resolving ethnic conflicts and argues for their application in civil war resolution. This book contributes to the decolonial literature/knowledge by discussing the subtle norms, the role of youth, women, and elders, the concepts of resilience and proximity, and their significance in peacebuilding. The book shows that for sustainable peace to happen, subtle roles and disputants' indigenous knowledge should be part of national peace negotiation strategies. This book will interest NGOs, students and scholars of indigenous knowledge, women, youth, conflict and peacebuilding, African Studies and Development in the Horn of Africa and sub-Sahara regions"--

Through educational barriers, occupational licensing, and bar association activities, American lawyers have endeavored to achieve a monopoly on the practice of law. One tool that has helped cement their ability to define lawyer-only turf is the unauthorized practice of law ("UPL") doctrine. This Article, which explores Massachusetts' attempts to bar lay practitioners, reveals that the state's unauthorized practice of law movement took hold relatively recently. It has been marked by fits and starts, by active proponents and by equally determined naysayers, by headline grabbing politicians and bar leaders, and by increasingly assertive judges. Perhaps most importantly, this account also reveals much about the inefficacy of judicial decision making in regulating lay practice. Massachusetts' experience with defining the practice of law recently came to the forefront in one hotly contested field – real estate conveyancing. In 2011, the state's highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court ("SJC"), interpreted the Commonwealth's UPL statutes in litigation that remains currently unresolved. Real Estate Bar Association, Inc. ("REBA") v. National Real Estate Information Services, Inc., 459 Mass. 512 (2011). After acknowledging that the "practice of law" is difficult to define, the SJC invoked "custom and practice" as a critical benchmark by which courts should undertake a fact-based inquiry necessary to determine whether certain conduct by laypersons constitutes unauthorized practice. This review examines the key rationales cited by the SJC for restricting the field to members of the bar. It reveals a tradition which has attempted to reconcile the public's access to services against lawyers' interest in protectionism, but which has left UPL principles in a confused muddle. While the Massachusetts judiciary has carved out for itself the constitutional authority to define the practice of law, its few clear precedents provide insufficient guidance for application to modern social needs and economic realities. The underlying REBA litigation is a useful example of the inherent limitations of the kind of case by case approach which has marked the Massachusetts experience. The Article concludes with cautionary remarks about the consequences of judicial control of the UPL doctrine and identifies alternative mechanisms by which courts could proceed.