In a small village of Helmand, Afghanistan, when two tribes clash over a piece of land, the dispute is rarely resolved in a courtroom. Instead, the tribal elders gather, and both disputing parties are heard. By sunset, a binding decision is issued, based on Islamic and tribal custom.

This is a jirga. For an estimated 60 to 80 percent of Afghans, it is justice.

For two decades, the United States and its allies spent billions of dollars, replacing the traditional justice systems with codified laws, formal courts, and Western-style litigation. However, after the fall of Kabul in 2021, the projects collapsed. The reasons are well documented, which point toward a different approach. This path does not require the Afghans to become something they are not; rather, it builds on how they already resolve disputes within their own social and customary frameworks. 

Why the Liberal Project Failed

For twenty years, international law efforts in Afghanistan focused on building the institutions, including ministries, magistrates, courtrooms, and codified statutes for the judges and prosecutors. The underlying assumption was that the international rule of law could be established only through formal systems and that informal systems would eventually fade once a true democratic state was in place. 

The plan did not work. Geoffrey Swenson argues in International Security that the reforms failed because they did not address the local legal pluralism. The legal design completely negated the fact that multiple informal justice systems have governed the Afghans for generations. Rather than integrating the local and religious norms with the designed plan, foreign actors treated them as obstacles in the way of Afghanistan's progress as a democratic state.

The result was predictable. The rural Afghan communities, constituting 76% of the Afghan population, ignored the formal court's rulings. Newly trained judges operated in the languages the locals did not speak fluently. The formal legal system was physically present but practically absent most of the time.

Recent empirical data further confirms the pattern. A 2025 research on local trust networks in Afghanistan shows that peacebuilding efforts succeed when they gain the trust of the locals, and fail when they try to operate above them.  Legitimacy cannot be imported.

What Afghans Actually Use

The ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) systems that fill the gap are Jirga and Shura. Both are the councils made by the respected community members. In most cases, these members are the elderly of the village or the religious figures, and sometimes both. The respected members listen to all disputing parties and issue decisions grounded in Islamic principles and local customs.

Afghans prefer such informal justice systems, and the reason has little to do with the ideology or religion. They are faster and offer swift decisions, unlike formal court systems, which can take years. Jirga and Shura systems do not cost the parties a single penny and keep the complete process confidential. The local community is willing to enforce the decisions made by the elders because they are issued by the authorities they already recognize. 

The informal justice system is not just a romantic picture, but it also has real failures. Sometimes, decisions can favor the more powerful party. For instance, the decisions can wrongly come in favor of a land owner over a tenant farmer or an abusive husband over his wife seeking justice. Exclusion of women from the proceedings is also a setback for the informal justice systems.

But the alternative has also been tested and failed. Formal reforms failed to connect with the local realities, while ADRs sometimes produce the wrong outcomes. Neither system, alone, works. A hybrid might. 

A Hybrid Model: Three Layers, One System

Roger Mac Ginty developed the framework of Hybrid Peacebuilding. Ginty argues that a durable peace is the outcome of international norms layered onto local practices, not substituted for them. When applied to the Afghan justice system, these points point to a new layered model: 

At the community level, the reform required is procedural, not structural. Jirga and Shura continue handling the land disputes, family issues, and minor offenses. The decisions made should be documented and made available to the participants and observers. Jirga systems are often based on oral memory, which creates inconsistency and a lack of accountability. However,

Research on constitution-making found that documentation alone reduces elite capture and limits the arbitrary outcomes. Participation in the sessions should be voluntary, and observers from outside should be allowed to sit in.

At the intermediate level, hybrid oversight councils review the decisions issued by the local councils. These small bodies must be institutionalized and include trained litigation experts, community elders, faith leaders, and human rights observers. Their job is not to overrule the decision of the Jirga and Shura, but to flag the basic human rights violations. Their job is to flag decisions that violate basic rights, whether grounded in Islamic principles or international standards. Research on Afghan governance shows that such intermediate bodies can act as buffers, increasing trust and compliance.

At the state level, formal courts maintain their authority over serious criminal matters, constitutional affairs, and grave human rights violations. Crucially, formal courts and magistrates should treat hybrid decisions as legitimate. To ensure that, they must operate in harmony with local justice mechanisms rather than compete with them.

The Hard Question

A hybrid model like this shows what could work, not what the current government would allow. Under the Taliban, women have been barred from courts, schools, and most public roles. Oversight councils as described above would not exist today. 

But it also does not make the model irrelevant. It is important for the international actors to realize that the justice system in Afghanistan will never look like the one in Washington, Paris, or London. The sooner this fact is accepted, the sooner durable peace becomes plausible.

Zainab Imran is a Pakistan-based researcher and writer with a background in Peace and Conflict Studies from the National Defense University, Pakistan, and  Goucher College, Maryland. Her interests lie in policy research, peacebuilding, and security governance. Through her work, she engages with social and policy issues, drawing on research and analysis to contribute to public discussion and policy thinking.