Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses how development actors providing aid to the justice sector in sub-Saharan Africa have so far approached the promotion of human rights in legally plural contexts and in relationship to local legal orders.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, development actors providing aid to the justice sector in sub-Saharan Africa started to consider how legal pluralism can advance access to justice. In this context, one of the areas that these actors address is the relationship between human rights and local legal orders. Based on empirical research on the main kinds of strategy employed for this purpose in different countries of this region, this paper argues that interventions tend to overlook four important issues. First, the multi-layered nature of local legal orders. Secondly, the modes of dispute processing that local legal actors resort to. Third, the existence of local knowledge that may contribute to the understanding and realization of human rights. And finally, how these interventions can lead to a more critical and inclusive understanding of international standards.