Waging War by Law. Taliban Courts in Afghanistan
How did the Taliban gain the trust of the Afghan population through decades of conflict? How did they put themselves in a position to regulate social relations? And with what consequences for Afghan society? Taliban Courts in Afghanistan. Waging War by Law argues that the movement achieved this not merely through military force or ideology, but by building a legal order. While the international coalition sponsored a corrupt and inadequate justice system, the Taliban established hundreds of courts across the countryside. By emphasizing due process, impartiality of judges, and the enforcement of verdicts, these courts became one of the few predictable institutions in the daily lives of Afghans.
The Taliban used law strategically : to substantiate their claim to embody the state, to disseminate their vision of society, and to establish local legitimacy. Their courts attempted to balance the political agenda of the movement, the demands of Islamic law, the needs of the population, and the expectations of international legal actors whose recognition they actively seeked.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted between 2010 and 2016 across multiple Afghan provinces, with rare access to Taliban judges and court users, this research rethinks the place of law and courts in contexts of civil war. It also sheds new light on why Western intervention failed and how the Taliban ultimately took over the country.
Adam Baczko holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the EHESS and is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the ERC « Social Dynamics of Civil Wars » program at Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. Adam has carried out fieldwork in Afghanistan, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq. He is general editor at Noria, a Paris-based think tank, and co-authored reports on Syria for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the New American Foundation. In collaboration with Gilles Dorronsoro and Arthur Quesnay, he is currently finishing a book on the Syrian Revolution and the ensuing Civil War. He is the author of The Taliban Courts in Afghanistan. Waging War by Law and Civil War in Syria.
