Sending State Law

The Clinical Fellow Licensure Conundrum

This article investigates the ways in which state and non-state laws become intricately intertwined in practices of conflict resolution in rural Bangladesh. Instead of inhabiting separate legal universes, I show how state and non-state laws become entangled in what I call the logic of non-enforcement. People in rural Bangladesh frequently appeal to state courts—yet they frequently do so not in order to get binding and enforceable verdicts, but to alter the outcomes of a non-state justice institution like the shalish in their favour. This leads to unexpected patterns of political accountability: people expect local elected politicians to intervene in the state courts, stop pending cases and bring them back to community-based resolution in non-state fora. Elected politicians are thus held accountable according to their ability to prevent the enforcement of state laws. At the same time, state agencies frequently bring legal cases to trial in non-state courts. I conceptualise this blurring between state and non-state laws, its underlying social dynamics as well as its normative justifications as a distinct ‘logic of non-enforcement’. According to this logic, state courts decisively affect the outcomes of processes of conflict resolution in rural Bangladesh while state laws nonetheless are systematically not enforced.

This article explains why, in a rapidly changing Asian society, tort law surprisingly plays a diminished role. Sociolegal theorists since Weber have postulated that state law operates by interacting with and responding to non-state legal orders. In Thailand, for much of the twentieth century the state law of torts interacted with and responded to a non-state customary law of injury and remediation. These two types of law were associated with two distinctive types of mapping that extended law across the Thai landscape. When European-based laws and legal institutions were first imposed by the emergent Thai state at the turn of the twentieth century, a then unprecedented form of mapping drew boundary lines around political spaces and applied new law codes uniformly throughout the jurisdictions thus enclosed. Such legal maps coexisted with a second type of customary mapping organized around sacred centers from which law radiated outward, diminishing in intensity and effectiveness with distance. The two maps were connected in the sense that injury victims sometimes invoked state law in order to enforce the norms and procedures of customary law. This article, based on recent interviews with injured persons, lawyers, insurance agents, and others, examines the relationship between state and non-state laws during a period of dramatic social change at the turn of the twenty-first century. It suggests that recent transformations of Thai society have rendered ineffective the customary norms and procedures associated with the law of sacred centers. Since state law no longer interacts with or responds to customary law, ordinary people increasingly view Thai tort law as irrelevant. Litigation rates have fallen and injury victims can no longer envision any effective way to compel injurers to pay compensation.

Bali, as a province with strong roots in local cultural traditions and significant economic importance for Indonesia, is striving to balance modernity and tradition, economics, especially mass tourism, and cultural identity. This is why Universitas Warmadewa, one of the largest Balinese universities, chooses the theme ‘Local Wisdom and Business Law’ for its international conferences each year.As a non-Indonesian legal scholar, this theme presents two challenges for me. Firstly, I am not an expert in tourism economics and can only approach the topic from a traditional market law perspective, theoretically. Secondly, the terms used in Indonesian legal discussions may seem vague and unclear from a German perspective, as the legal discussion in Indonesia integrates traditional legal phenomena pragmatically into the applicable legal system. This may also be historically conditioned because since independence Indonesia has to handle a legal pluralism in law, which also finds its cause in the legacy of the colonial era.When speaking on the legal perspective of ‘local wisdom’, several questions are unclear to me:What exactly is local wisdom and how can it be defined?Where does it fit into the Indonesian legal system?What role can local wisdom play in contemporary law?Local wisdom may be understood as part of traditional customary law or Adat, at least in terms of its influence on legal issues, as the conference theme suggests. The terminology around ‘customary law’, ‘Adat’, ‘indigenous law’, or ‘living law’ is still a problematic issue in Indonesian scientific discussion and should only be briefly mentioned in this presentation. The term ‘Adat law’ was originally not used in Indonesian society and was first systematically used by the Dutch. Van Vollenhoven, considered the ‘father of Indonesian Adat law’ by Indonesian scholars, defined Adat law as law that is not based on codified legal rules from the legislator. This definition is still used by contemporary Indonesian scholars. Adat law in this sense contains sanctions, making the character of ‘law’. It was characterized by Van Vollenhoven as dynamic and flexible folk law, which combines the term with the often-used term of ‘living law’. There are numerous discussions in Indonesian literature about Indonesian customary law, its functions, and significance, but the terminology has not been clearly defined and the role of religious law is also subject to numerous publications.Therefore, having read various contributions on the topic, I am left confused because some of them discuss the existence of legal principles of living customary law and describe them as “national Indonesian principles,” which can replace parts of the post-colonial Indonesian law, but they do not clearly identify these principles. The topic seems to be of almost patriotic importance to Indonesia, making it particularly difficult for foreign scholars to approach the subject in presentations before Indonesian colleagues. My contribution should be seen in light of this difficulty, as a first observation of the phenomenon from a foreign perspective.The term Adat is already difficult to comprehend, and this is even more true for the term “local wisdom” in a legal context. So, what is the “Local Wisdom” that I am asked to talk about? The Terms of Reference of our conference describe the meaning of “local wisdom” mainly as the clash of market actors in local Balinese tourism that can lead to conflicts, which the law should resolve. These conflicts are said to occur because local communities and institutions, based on a kind of traditionally grown trust, seek to build and maintain their business relationships in the tourism industry. This trust, which one could call “traditional good faith,” meets the need to regulate contractual arrangements more formally in terms of contract law (“more official...instead of just relying on promises or good faith”).In this sense, local wisdom is an aspect of good faith. Based on this understanding of the term, I have no systematic issues with the term “local wisdom.” However, it should be noted that good faith and contract, as a predictable shaping of legal relationships between market actors, should not be seen as opposites. It is possible and necessary to resolve disruptions in contractual relationships in light of good faith and, if necessary, adapt contractual regulations. Here, “local wisdom” should not be understood as a unique source of good faith, but as a general aspect that can influence the expectations of the contracting parties and their trust in shaping the law. This raises the question of which factors should be taken into account by the non-local contracting party in good faith, and which should not. It is a question of the concrete assessment of the structure of interests and the balance of the contract, how to allocate risk and assign external aspects to the contracting parties and which aspects should be considered subsequently.This is a theoretical matter, and it is unlikely to play a significant role in practice since local market actors and communities have the freedom, within the framework of private autonomy, to incorporate their traditional interests into the contract negotiations. This allows for traditional interests to participate in the “equivalence justice” of the contract. However, if the traditional interests of the local community result in unacceptable consequences for the contract’s execution, the question of whether these reasons can lead to a change in the contract’s basis may arise. In civil law systems, the clausula rebus sic stantibus is regulated as a limitation of the pacta sunt servanda principle and falls under the principle of good faith (bona fides). If the invocation of “local wisdom” by one party leads to the other party having to agree to an adjustment, it would have to be examined.I would like to give you an example of this, which seems credible even if no prove about the issue can be delivered due to the ‘popular’ source: A person without Indonesian citizenship acquired the right to use a plot of land with a house in Bali ten years ago. Since foreigners cannot acquire land ownership in Indonesia themselves, the foreigner had agreed on a legal arrangement with an Indonesian citizen resident in Bali, in which the Indonesian acquired ownership (hak milik) of the land with the foreigner’s money and agreed on right to use for the foreign partner. After ten years, the foreigner wanted to sell the property again to move to his country of origin. The agreement with the Indonesian partner stipulated that the Indonesian partner must agree to the sale of the plot on the wish of the foreign partner and would receive 10% of the sale amount in the event of a sale. In the case described, however, the Indonesian partner seems to have refused to sell the property on the agreed terms. He was not satisfied with the 10% share and demanded a 70% share instead. As justification for this, he argued that the contract terms should be changed because he had spiritually enhanced the property over the years through certain religious rituals and this required a revaluation of his shareholding.It is not known whether the case was heard in an Indonesian court and how it was finally settled. Assuming the case had occurred as described, from the perspective of Indonesian civil law, it is clear that no change in the business basis of the contract occurred as a result of the Indonesian partner’s spiritual acts, which can lead to an adjustment of the agreement between him and the foreign contractual partner. Just as local communities depend on their interests in cultural identity being taken into account even in legal relations with partners coming from outside, foreign investors must be able to rely on certain standards of contractual obligation. The principle of good faith would be grotesquely overstretched if local contracting partners could use fuzzy notions of ‘local wisdom’ to make contractual arrangements more flexible in their favour.Another example of the clash between traditional legal customs and supra-regional legal ideas in highly traditional markets with supra-regional economic importance, such as Bali, is the handling of legal disputes and methods of dispute resolution. The trust of traditional communities in supra-legal ties of interest in business relationships, as mentioned in the Terms of Reference to this Conference, meets a systemic trust in formal contractual regulations of non-local actors. The reference points of trust of the respective groups of market actors thus differ. This also affects dispute resolution. According to Sulastriyono, the voluntary character of traditional customary law has the advantage over civil law methods of litigation and dispute resolution of a ‘win-win’ solution, which leads to greater acceptance of the solution by the parties to the conflict. In theory, this is undeniable. However, it is questionable whether this acceptance can also be achieved among contract participants who do not originate from the respective culture, because the existence of sufficient advantages for a party may well depend on the integration of the party in the respective local society. Moreover, the indisputable advantages of consensual dispute resolution can also be well integrated in state procedural law via mediation mechanisms.Cases such as the one outlined one above would in principle be likely to erode the confidence of foreign investors in Indonesian law in general if courts do not rule clearly and draw clear boundaries here. The example seems to be a particularly extreme case, but it shows how important it is to clearly determine the meaning and possible role of terms such as ‘local wisdom’ and ‘tradition’ for use in law. Culturally related aspects are prone to serve as a tool for discrimination against individuals and companies that do not belong to the respective cultural environment. The difficulty, for example, of establishing an intellectual property right on cultural heritage follows not only from the contrast between individual subjective rights and collective subjective rights. It follows above all from the problem of determining the collective rights holders who are to benefit from ‘their’ cultural heritage. Who is a member of a certain culture? Is there a generational link or does it depend on the integration of the individual into his or her living environment? If the legal system does not want to fall back to abstruse considerations of ‘blood identity’, what remains is the assignment of such claims to territorial authorities or the state itself, whose task it is to protect cultural diversity on its territory. This is the path that the Indonesian legislature had taken in Art 38 Law No 28/2014 on copyright law.The misuse of cultural aspects carried into the application of law is also visible in another aspect: In another paper I have pointed out the problem that the concept of traditional customary law in Indonesian law and the position of Adat law in the hierarchy of norms seems in need of clarification. Shidarta notes that there is no sufficient clarity about the relationship between Adat law and state law and thus no consistent system of Indonesian law as a whole. Accordingly, the maturation of an independent Indonesian legal system suffers to this day from the internal conflict with the colonial legacy of existing state law based on Dutch civil law and the lack of a consistent overarching pluralistic concept of law. This is seen by Shidarta as a major reason why the systematic positions of customary law, Islamic law and western law within national law are not clearly defined and why a clear hierarchical determination of the various sources of law in relation to national law is lacking. The doubts about the systematic location and certainly also the failure to establish the principles of traditional customary law as original Indonesian law after the attainment of independence instead of the sources of law inherited from the colonial period are probably due - in addition to the idea of the state founders of an Indonesian unitary state (‘eenheidstaat’) - above all to the disagreement about the concept of customary law, which is formally understood in the sense of a binding source of law defined during the colonial period, or as post-colonial Adat law in the sense of traditional customary rights of various Indonesian ethnic groups either with a binding character or as norms of social order based on voluntariness. In this respect, too, different definitions of the term can be found in the literature:There is thus generally a more philosophical recognition of the importance of traditional customary law in the sense that customary law reflects the actual sense of law of the people and the Indonesian people as a nation. The latter statement seems problematic to me because the statement only applies with regard to the significance of customary law as a source of law, but not to the content of the individual customary laws of the various ethnic groups, in which different legal customs apply in each case. It therefore seems questionable to me whether Adat law can be understood in the sense of an alternative to Indonesian state law. In my opinion, Adat as a source of concrete legal norms has a supplementary development perspective in the communal area. Here it can certainly have an influence on economic life in the regions if it is applied consistently and transparently, and its importance would grow especially if the autonomy of municipal territorial units were strengthened, and a strong federalism were developed. However, a scientific inventory of norms and principles of local customary law is then required, and a clear formulation of such norms is needed, because it must be ruled out that the invocation of undefined, non-transparent or arbitrarily formulated Adat rules unduly restricts the freedom of market actors and are used as protectionist instruments in the provinces.In this sense, I believe that the postulate that Indonesian law must simply recognise Adat law as it has grown and as it is applied alive within the Indonesian local societies falls short, because the compatibility of social rules based on voluntariness and constantly changing with the overall legal system based on the rule of law is at least debatable. In other words: either one renounces the legal certainty and predictability of legal norms in the area of traditional customary law. This could then constitute a breach of the constitutionally enshrined principle of the Rule of Law. Or one formulates clear norms based on traditional legal principles, which have the character of binding legal norms and applies them in the sense of subsidiarity in the local environment with priority over central state law in certain predefined aspects. Then the rules of the hierarchy of norms must be correspondingly clear. However, the question of the hierarchy of norms then no longer presents itself as a problem of the nature of Adat or customary law because the latter would have lost its character as actual customary law. The advocates of a strong recognition of Adat by state law will, however, reject this path because they see the advantage of traditional customary law over state law precisely in its flexibility and ability to change. This flexibility would no longer be readily available through an integration of traditional principles into a local classical law in the sense of imperative norms.A clear hierarchy of norms defined by constitutional law seems indispensable, because such local customary law cannot displace state law without further ado, but only if the principle of subsidiarity and the better regulation of local circumstances by local law indicates otherwise. This would also be in line with the philosophical assessment of local customary law as the law that best captures the living conditions of the people in its cultural area of application. The importance of the principle of subsidiarity should generally be given more attention in the discussion on legal pluralism in Indonesia. This can not only ensure greater recognition of traditional customary law, but also enable the transparency necessary for the predictability of the law.Insofar as Adat is to be understood as the source of ‘abstract normative’ aspects, as certain common Indonesian legal values and principles in the sense of a ‘pan-Indonesian’ legal order and, as such, is to find its way into an independent state Indonesian civil law, legal scholarship in Indonesia will also have to identify and clearly define these principles. In doing so, it will be necessary to determine which principles of traditional customary law in the various regions of the archipelago are suitable as overarching legal principles, so that they can possibly have an identity-forming effect in a national private law. This difficult process might lead to reform of the Indonesian Civil Law which meets the special requirements of a socially and culturally integrated legal system.Indonesia as a state with a unified internal market needs a cross-cultural private law and commercial law. Consideration of the interests of local communities and traditions is of importance in a multicultural state. The Indonesian constitution therefore emphasises the specifics of traditional rights and thus guarantees Adat its own status in the legal system. However, there seems to be a lack of a clear hierarchy of norms in the legal system and a clear definition of the nature of Adat. A hint of a certain hierarchy between Adat and state law is indeed found in agricultural law (Art. 5 Law No. 5/1960 on the Basic Regulations of Agrarian Principles) and in forestry law (Law No. 41/1999 on Forestry). Adat is recognised here but must harmonise with state law. It is therefore likely to be in a relationship of subsidiarity to state law. The fundamental assertion of the primacy of state law over other co-existing legal systems is also in line with the view of Indonesian legal scholars such as Sunaryati Hartono. Referring to Griffiths’ formulation of “weak legal pluralism”, where co-existing legal systems are subordinated to a dominant formalistic national law, it can be stated that the Indonesian legal system follows this model.In my opinion, the integration of traditional customary law into the legal system should not be done as a mere tolerance of state law towards deviating regulations of facts in certain regions. From my perspective as a foreign observer, this seems to lead to significant problems for the development of the Indonesian economy and for investment. In particular, this seems to me to be the case for Bali. Local Wisdom can be incorporated into the contractual relations of the parties within the framework of private autonomous arrangements. A ‘creative’ qualification of protectionist measures against outside market actors or the justification of the failure to sanction breaches of contract or violations of law against outsiders as ‘Adat’ or ‘protection of local traditions’ should be consistently avoided.Incidentally, it seems to me that in contract law there is no real opposition between state law and traditional customary law. Either the parties trust each other, in which case state law does not prevent an agreement based on good faith. Or they do not, in which case only state contract law can lead to proper solutions. The same applies to traditional dispute resolution methods, to which the parties to the conflict can easily submit. In contrast, the integration of customary law as independent Indonesian legal principles or as legal norms at the local or municipal level into Indonesian law would require considerable academic effort. For this, the principles concerned would have to be clearly identified, systematised, and formulated to be able to substantiate a claim to validity beyond the respective local communities. The mere reference to historically evolved convictions of local communities is too vague. The term ‘local wisdom’ seems to me to be problematic in this sense to accurately describe the question of the collision of traditional customs and expectations of outside market actors, especially since it is already conceptually positively evaluative. Finally, it should not be forgotten, that the continental European codifications are culturally neutral and in big parts based on the Roman law. Roman law itself was not developed under the cultural framework of northern and middle European regions, however it served well as source for the modern European codifications. These codifications are working fine until these days in different nations without obvious incompatibilities with local traditions. The amount of a ‘Volksgeist’ after the idea of Friedrich Carl von Savigny within the Private Law does not play a big role in the contemporary discussion as law should be seen in a pragmatic way as a viable tool to organize the modern society. Indonesia is an important economically emerging nation. As such it might be a good idea to keep an internationally compatible private law, which might be carefully adapted to certain peculiarities of the Indonesian society. The use of general clauses as entrance doors for local legal convictions seems to be a good way for that and a clearly defined legal hierarchy with a constitutionally based legal subsidiarity principle seems important. In contrast, the foundation of modern law on nationalistic, local, or indigenous traditional customs should only be done with extreme caution, if at all. The contemporary discussion on the role of Adat in Indonesian law shows the great difficulty of determining viable legal rules that can enter a future reformed Indonesian private law as ‘originally Indonesian’. The criticism against Von Savigny’s ‘Volksgeist’ idea also applies here: Defining who the ‘people’ are and what constitutes their common identity is already hardly rationally possible in a non-multi-ethnic state, even more in a multi-ethnic state. National identity-forming circumstances are hardly suitable as common principles for pluralistic societies.

Most of the legal theory of the last four centuries, in the Western world, has been state-centred. It has justified the existence of states, facilitated their expansion, conceptualized their sources and structures, sought to resolve their conflicts, and developed their law. The state has even been taken, in much of this writing, as the exclusive source of law. There are indications, however, that this theoretical preoccupation with state structures, state institutions, and state laws may now be in decline. This would be a significant development, a historical shift in emphasis in the conceptualization of Western law. It would not, however, mean the end of states or of state law, but rather their contextualization. States and state law would exist in a larger field of normativity. This would entail recognition of a wider range of sources of law and a wider range of relations between laws and between peoples. To attempt to understand these processes, and the extent of their progression, this article examines what we know, or think we know, of the relations between law and the state, before turning to current efforts to develop a transnational concept of law.

So many things have gone wrong with our housing market that it is hard to know where to start. One simple diagnosis is that we invested too much in houses that were not worth as much as we thought. Looked at in this way, it is relatively easy to see how innovations like interest-only loans contributed to an over-valuation of housing. Certain actions of the federal government were and are also clearly problematic, such as the longstanding tax breaks for home ownership. This Article looks at state and local government law, and particularly at financing mechanisms created by state law and used by local governments to subsidize new development. In essence, local governments issued bonds to build key infrastructure for new developments, and interest on those bonds were exempt from state and federal income taxes. This Article maintains that these mechanisms served as yet another subsidy to the very same kinds of value-destroying housing developments that were already being over-encouraged in other ways. Just as the current crisis has rightly led policymakers to reconsider government actions at the federal level, this crisis should also lead to a similar reevaluation of state and local government law, particularly as it intersects with the federal tax exemption for state and local bonds. However, to do this properly, we must first reconsider the central normative justification for the current local government landscape. This justification is economic and consists of the argument that competition among a multitude of local government entities is efficient. This vision of jurisdictional competition is generally known as the Tiebout model. This Article makes a series of specific contributions to this rethinking. First, despite arguments by proponents of the Tiebout model to the contrary, it is demonstrated that a full-blown Tiebout model does not release governments at various levels, nor citizens, from making political choices about a just (versus merely efficient) distribution of resources. This is primarily because the legal background rules that set the terms of the competition also select for different equally efficient sets of jurisdictions. From this result it follows that these legal background rules ought to be interrogated as making political choices. A particular type of rule is described in this Article as a "bundling rule. "A bundling rule operates, for instance, by making a certain method of financing schools readily available only to new subdivisions, thus bundling new schools with new development. By opting to make such a method available, state governments are in effect choosing to encourage certain patterns of development. Once this is realized, then there should be no barrier standing in the way of scrapping bundling rules that encourage sprawl.

This paper introduces this Special Number. The work of the Project Group Legal Pluralism at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle aims to continue the rapid expansion of recent decades of studies of legal pluralism. The recently much discussed phenomenon of globalisation has provoked a wide variety of local responses. Encounters are occurring between state laws, transnational laws, customary laws and religious laws, all of which are liable as a result to be transformed by processes of adaptation, appropriation and vulgarisation. This may lead to increasing pluralisation of laws, but can also in some cases produce homogenisation, or de-pluralisation.The notion of ‘law’ should not be limited to state, international and transnational law, but should be used to refer to all those objectified cognitive and normative conceptions for which validity for a certain social formation is authoritatively asserted. Law becomes manifest in many forms, and is comprised of a variety of social phenomena. Constellations of legal pluralism may include legal systems, unnamed laws and religious laws. Within such a constellation elements of one legal order may change in various ways under the influence of another. Co-existing bodies of law may cover different geographical and political spaces, and longer temporal periods than are formally acknowledged. Inter-system demarcations also vary in complex ways in their form and in the uses to which social actors put them. Legal orders (and not only state laws) recognise or do not recognise other orders in varying ways, these constructions having potentially some influence on social actors, the nature and extent of which are empirical questions in each case.The emergence, maintenance and change of constellations of legal pluralism are thus the result of dynamic processes. Such processes are examined in this volume, and the following papers contain illustrations of all these issues.

The Indonesian government, through various policies and regulations, is trying to protect protected paddy fields (LSD) from being converted into non-agricultural functions, such as tourism, housing, and industrial development. One of these efforts is by issuing Decree of the Minister of ATR/BPN Number 1589/SKHK.02.01/XII/2021 concerning the Determination of Protected Rice Field Maps in various provinces, including Bali. Paddy fields in Bali have an important role not only in food security, but also in culture and economy, especially related to the Subak system that manages irrigation. However, more and more paddy fields are threatened by conversion, and this relates to the imbalance between agriculture and tourism sectors in Bali's development policy. The formulation of the problem in this research is 1). How is the problematic of protected paddy fields related to the development of tourism accommodation in Badung Regency? 2). How is the legal protection of protected paddy fields according to state law and customary law related to the development of tourism accommodation in Badung Regency? This research method uses empirical legal research. The objectives of this research include: 1). To review and analyze law enforcement against protected paddy fields in Badung Regency. 2). To review and analyze the legal protection of protected paddy fields in Badung Regency. From the research results, it is known that: 1) The development of tourism accommodation in Abiansemal District, Badung, diverts Protected Rice Fields (LSD) into tourism areas without clear licenses, damages the environment, and threatens local wisdom. The economic pressure of tourism, weak supervision, and policy inconsistency exacerbate the situation. Progressive law enforcement is needed to support sustainable development. 2) The approach to protecting paddy fields in Badung includes preventive policies such as LP2B, RTRW zoning, agricultural incentives, and awig-awig revitalization. The repressive approach involves state and customary law sanctions. Synchronization between state and customary law is needed for the effectiveness of land protection, maintaining food security, and preserving Balinese culture.

This book takes a stand against the narrowing focus of (German) jurisprudence on state law, rooted in the history of the territorially organised nation state. In the shadow of this tradition, state(-hood) law was only conceived of as state law. However, a gradual decoupling of state and law is observable – not least because of globalisation – which inevitably entails a pluralisation of legal regulations. Jurisprudence has to react to this, if it wants to remain relevant.

The common and simple definition of an Islamic state refers to a system of government that is based on Islamic Sharia law. As a term, the word has been used to describe many political and religious governments in the Islamic world in the past. The Islamic concept of the state is hidden within the terminology that Islam has adopted to define the state. Islam has not adopted the terms ‘state’ or ‘kingdom’ or ‘government’ for the political organization established on its principles, but has adopted the terms ‘caliphate’ or ‘imamate’ or ‘leadership For this reason, to clarify the Islamic concept of the state, it is first necessary to consider these terms and understand their implications. Therefore, when the discussion of the Islamic state begins, its basic characteristics are three: politics, imamate, and caliphate. The intellectual principles and laws of the Islamic state encompass all the actions, deeds, and movements of the individual for his preparation. Because these are what make and break the individual. These general ideas are actually based on a few firm, unwavering, and unquestionable principled ideas. "What need does Allah have for this worship and supplication of a servant?" It is true that Allah Himself is independent of our worship, but His creation is in need of worship because man has been created weak and imperfect by nature and character, and he has to face helplessness on thousands of occasions in life.

In countries of the South Pacific, societies are often discussed in terms of the dichotomy between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’. Similarly, legal systems are often described by reference to the dichotomy between ‘customary’ or ‘traditional’ law and ‘state law’, and between ‘informal’ and ‘formal’ justice. In fact, these divisions are becoming a thing of the past, gradually blurred by changes in the pattern of society and by the interaction between different systems of law. Further, the approach taken to the accommodation of customary law, which has been to formally ‘recognise’ it in constitutions, has, at least in theory, put an end to its independent operation. In the search for a more effective approach to legal pluralism, the existing dichotomy may often obscure a more complex interplay between the interwoven spheres of ‘traditional law’ and ‘state law’ and a new sphere of ‘blended’ law. In each of these spheres there are uncertainties, including questions of definition and scope, which constitute a potentially destabilising factor and have significant rule of law implications.Commencing with an overview of the different sources and types of law within the ‘customary’ and ‘state’ law spheres in the South Pacific region, this paper discusses some of the uncertainties and tensions that arise from pluralism in practice. Examples drawn mainly from Solomon Islands are used to illustrate the various ways in which the lines between customary law and state law have been blurred. These include attempts to incorporate customary law in statutes. Two examples of statutes which provide for this are considered, and the case-law arising from them is discussed.Commencing with an overview of the different sources and types of law within the ߢcustomaryߣ and ߢstateߣ law spheres in the South Pacific region, this paper discusses some of the uncertainties and tensions that arise from pluralism in practice. Examples drawn mainly from Solomon Islands are used to illustrate the various ways in which the lines between customary law and state law have been blurred. These include attempts to incorporate customary law in statutes. Two examples of statutes which provide for this are considered, and the case-law arising from them is discussed

Intergovernmental relations are the responses that have been developed to facilitate cooperative policy making among divided governments within a federal system. Intergovernmental relations are supposed to play a bridge-building role to bring a degree of coordination and cooperation to divided powers. Enforcing federal laws in the states is one form of the interactions between the federal governments and states in federations. Today enforcement of federal laws and policies in the state in particular and the task of intergovernmental coordination in general are mainly done through the ruling party (EPRDF). Execution of federal laws and policies in the states using a party line has been made smoothly for the last 28 years in Ethiopia. However, following the coming of PrimeMinister Abiy to power, EPRDF lost the support of TPLF, its core allies on its stand in the process of enacting and executing policies and laws. It, in turn, has led to gaps in the regularity and effectiveness in the implementation of federal laws in the states. Excessive reliance on party channel evokes the question of what will happen if more members( alliances) manage to depart from the ideology of the EPRDF and whether under such contexts bring about the collapse of the Ethiopian federalism as well. Such risks call for the need to establish vibrant institution to coordinate the execution of federal laws in the states in Ethiopian federal system.

Lost in the maze of statutes, regulations, and potential liabilities that identify the current mass of water protection law? This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Water Regulation, which consists of 2-4 page fact sheets that provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal, federal, and state (Florida) laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farmland owners have under both federal and state laws as well as the appropriate contact information to obtain more detailed information. Written by Michael T. Olexa and Zachary Broome, with contributions by Tatiana Borisova, and published by the UF Department of Food and Resource Economics, June 2011.
 FE588/FE588: 2021 Handbook of Florida Water Regulation: Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (ufl.edu)

Lost in the maze of statutes, regulations, and potential liabilities that identify the current mass of water protection law? This revised document is part of the Handbook of Florida Water Regulation, which consists of 2-4 page fact sheets that provide an accurate, current, and authoritative summary of the principal, federal, and state (Florida) laws that directly or indirectly relate to agriculture. It provides a basic overview of the many rights and responsibilities that farmers and farmland owners have under both federal and state laws as well as the appropriate contact information to obtain more detailed information. Written by Michael T. Olexa and Zachary Broome, with contributions by Tatiana Borisova, and published by the UF Department of Food and Resource Economics, June 2011.
 FE617/FE617: 2021 Handbook of Florida Water Regulation: Notes and Glossary (ufl.edu)

Imagine that one day you become very sick. You are ill enough that you end up in the hospital, running up a heavy bill. You recover over the next several weeks, and, since your health insurance is completely covered by your job, you feel that you have come out of a bad situation fairly well. Then you get the bad news: your employer has been quietly pocketing your premiums for some time, and the insurer has informed your employer that your insurance has been terminated. You have never dealt directly with the insurer before in your life: premiums, information about policy changes, and even the summaries discussing what coverage the policy actually contains have all been managed by your employer acting on the insurer's behalf. Now, imagine your confusion when you are informed that you cannot get your health benefits from the insurer. Despite crossing every t and dotting every i, you are cut off. You will be upset to learn that just one year ago, you would have been able to collect full benefits under a state law declaring that when employers perform all of the functions of a plan administrator and take the place of the insurer or the insurer's agent, they are considered to be agents of the insurer. This would have allowed you to collect, since your premium payments delivered to your employer would be deemed to have been delivered directly to the insurer. However, the Supreme Court determined in May 1999 that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA')1 preempted your state's agency law.2 Although federal courts could replace the preempted state agency law with a federal common law rule of agency pursuant to ERISA, they have remained hesitant to do so.3 ERISA preemption of state law has created scores of commonly recognized problems. The foremost of these is that ERISA preemp-