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Professor Dr Ali Wardak

Professor of Criminology at University of South Wales

Participant at the Launch Event

&

Panel Discussion - seperate event

'Can peace return to Afghanistan? If yes, How and if no, Why Not?'

Professor Ali Wardak, who obtained his PhD degree from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, teaches criminology at the University of South Wales, and is a Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Academy. His main teaching and research interests over the past 25 years focus on comparative crime and justice, transnational crime, restorative justice, and the relationships between state and non-state justice systems. From 2006 to 2008, he worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kabul, and co-authored the 2007 Afghanistan Human Development Report where a ‘hybrid model’ for post-Taliban justice system in Afghanistan is proposed. Professor Wardak has collaborated closely with Professor John Braithwaite of ANU on Peace building Compared research project (http://regnet.anu.edu.au/centre-people/details/collaborators/ali-wardak) that focuses on a study of ‘what works in peace building’ and on the causes of conflicts in 48 countries around the world. Professor Wardak is a Vice President of the South Asian Society of Criminology and Victimology (http://www.sascv.org/eb.html) and has been invited speaker at major conferences/forums in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States. He has published widely, and is the joint winner (with John Braithwaite) of the 2013 Radzinowicz Prize (http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/14/bjc.azu035.extract). On winning the prize, professor Wardak was congratulated by President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan through an official letter of tributes (https://president.gov.af/en/press-release/president-ghani-expresses-congratulations-to-dr-ali-wardak/). In November 2017, he won the University of South Wales ‘Best International Impact Award’ in recognition of the impact of his research on the justice system of Afghanistan (http://criminology.research.southwales.ac.uk/news/en/2017/nov/06/dr-ali-wardak-receives-prize-best-international-im/. Professor Wardak’s research was nominated for the 2018 Times Higher Education  Awards (https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/three-welsh-universities-shortlisted-times-15114566).  Professor Wardak (with Prof K. Williams and P. Kamruzzaman) has recently received £300,000 from the British Academy to conduct field research on ‘Exploring the experiences of violence and loss of dignity among Rohingyas in Bangladesh and Internally Displaced People in Afghanistan’. Professor Wardak – who is proficient in  speaking, reading and writing in English,  Arabic, Pashto, Dari/Persian  –  has regularly contributed to various current affairs/news programmes of the BBC (Television) Wales, ITV, BBC  Wales Good Morning Programme, BBC Radio 4, Radio Red Dragon, BBC Radio-One World, BBC Persian and Pashto programmes, Radio Liberty, Tolo and Lemar TVs (Afghanistan),  and Vice of America Ashna (Persian and Pashto) TV.

Ayobi, Y. Williams and Wardak (2020) ‘Afghanistan: Stuttering Peace Process Leaves out Millions Displaced by 40 Years of War’, in The Conversation, UK: https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-stuttering-peace-process-leaves-out-millions-displaced-by-40-years-of-war-135605

 

This short article is based on some of the findings of an ongoing British Academy funded project that explores the experiences of violence and the loss of dignity by Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Afghanistan. The article Illustrates the fears of Afghan IDPs about continued war a well as their hopes for a sustainable peace in Afghanistan.

 

Qafisheh, M. and Wardak, A. (2019) 'Restorative Justice Capacities in Middle Eastern

Culture and Society: Towards a Hybrid Model of Juvenile Justice in Palestine', The International Journal of Restorative Justice vol. 2(1) pp. 93-116. (Accessible at: https://www.elevenjournals.com/tijdschrift/IJRJ/2019/1/IJRJ_2589-0891_2019_002_001_006

 

Alongside the state juvenile justice system, various forms of non-state justice providers are strongly prevalent in Palestine. Although the state juvenile justice has evolved into a modern system, it lacks adequate human, professional and infrastructural capacities to provide effective justice to all children. This field research has identified key non-state justice providers in Palestine and reveals that they are more accessible and speedy and also place more emphasis on peacemaking and reconciliation than the state justice system. It also reveals that in the processes of justice dispensation, occasional violation of children’s rights takes place within some of the male-dominated non-state justice providers. In order to minimise rights violation, while capitalising on the restorative capacities of non-state justice providers, a ‘hybrid model of juvenile justice in Palestine’ has been developed and is proposed. It is argued in this article that the ‘hybrid model’ not only promises to provide a coherent framework of links between Palestinian state juvenile justice and non-state justice providers, but also has the capacity to minimise rights violation through proposed internal and external oversight mechanisms. It is further maintained that translating the hybrid model into practice may result in the provision of more accessible, inclusive and restorative juvenile justice to all children in Palestine.

 

Wardak, A. (2018) ‘Institutionalising Inclusive and Sustainable Justice in Afghanistan: Hybrid Possibilities’, in Incremental Peace in Afghanistan, Accord 27, London: Conciliation Resources (Accessible at: https://www.c-r.org/downloads/Incremental%20peace%20in%20Afghanistan.pdf

 

State and non-state justice providers are both part of the problem and potentially part of the solution. Despite significant strides being made in Afghanistan’s formal justice system, it still struggles to deliver an accessible and inclusive service. Widespread corruption and neglect especially in rural areas are among the most serious contemporary challenges. Informal institutions are the primary justice provider for many communities, resolving disputes through jirgas, shuras and ulema where the formal sector is absent, exclusive or mistrusted. But traditional bodies also bring challenges, from poor record-keeping to gender exclusion, human rights violations and illicit practices. Taliban justice is also a significant feature of the informal sphere. A hybrid system that draws on formal and informal institutions can offer a way forward, linked by new institutions that prioritise human and women’s rights. A sophisticated hybrid model has previously been developed but has experienced resistance from existing justice institutions. More recently, there has been renewed interest in it from the Ministry of Justice and elsewhere.

 

Wardak, A. (2016) A Decade and a Half of Rebuilding Afghanistan's Justice System: An Overview, Leiden: Van Vollenhoven Institute ((Accessible at: http://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/rechtsgeleerdheid/metajuridica/afghanistans-justice-system-vs-2016.10.04.pdf)

 

This paper is partly based on a collaborative research project between the University of Leiden (the Netherlands) and the University of South Wales that focused on ‘Primary justice in South Sudan and Afghanistan’.  The paper is based on a systematic review and analysis of secondary data on the (re)building process of Afghanistan’s justice intuitions between 2002 – 2016. It is argued in this paper that  while huge international investment in Afghanistan’s  justice sector  has resulted in a modern functioning state justice ‘system’ in the country,  it has a long way to provide effective justice to all. The state justice ‘system’ continues to face serious problems – including corruption, inadequacy of resources, limited access to justice, and lack of trust. This review of a large number of empirical research further indicates that   people prefer informal justice institutions - such as jirga and shura – over the state justice system. This is because jirga and shura are more accessible, cost-effective, speedy, and transparent. However, the same research also indicate that jirga and shura exclude women, their decisions are not officially recorded; they also sometimes violate Afghan law, human rights and are influenced by warlords. This paper furthermore draws on existing studies on the subject that focus on the links between state and non-state justice systems m - including studies on hybrid models of justice systems in Afghanistan. It is further argued in this paper that instead of structural reform of Afghanistan’s justice system, international actors focused on ‘quick-fixing’, patchy ‘legal engineering’, and on the use of informal justice as a tool in the ‘war on terror’. The paper concludes that the failure to engage fully with the sources of normative order in Afghanistan – religion, cultural traditions, and an effective provision of public goods – seriously compromised international efforts to (re)build an effective and transparent justice system in Post-Taliban Afghanistan. The case of Afghanistan provides important lessons to other post-conflict countries that are emerging from war

 

 

Braithwaite, J. Wardak, A. (2013) ‘Crime and War in Afghanistan Part I: The Hobbesian Solution’, British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 53/2: 179-196. (Accessible at: http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/2/179.full.pdf+html)

 

This paper views Afghanistan less as a war, and more as a contest of criminalized justice systems. The paper begins by looking back to the Taliban who came to power because they were able to restore order to spaces terrorized by armed gangs and mujahedeen factions. After the Taliban’s ‘defeat’ in 2001, their resurgence was invited by the failure of state justice and security institutions. The Taliban returned with a parallel court system that most Afghans viewed as more effective and fair than the state system. Polls suggest judges were perceived as among the most corrupt elements of a corrupt state. Police were widely perceived as thieves of ordinary people’s property, not protectors of it. While the US diagnosis of anomie in Afghanistan up to 2009 was aptly Hobbesian, its remedy of supporting President Hamid Karzai as a Leviathan was hardly apt. The West failed to ask in 2001 ‘What is working around here to provide people security?’. One answer to that question would have been jirga/shura. A more Jeffersonian rural republicanism that learnt from local traditions of dispute resolution defines a path not taken

 

Wardak, A. and Braithwaite, J. (2013) ‘Crime and War in Afghanistan Part II: A Jeffersonian Alternative?’ British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 53/2: 197-214. (Accessible at: http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/2/197.full.pdf+html)

 

This paper is closely interlinked with the first paper in this list, where US President, Barack Obama, is reported as saying to his inner circle that their objective in Afghanistan is not to build a Jeffersonian democracy. This paper discusses the idea that a more Jeffersonian architecture of rural republicanism in tune with Afghan traditions is a remedy to limits of the Hobbesian view on Afghanistan. Anomic spaces where policing and justice do not work are vacuums that can attract tyrannical forms of law and order, such as the rule of the Taliban. Peace with justice cannot prevail in the aftermath of such an occupation without a reliance on both local community justice and state justice that are mutually constitutive. Supporting checks on abuse of power through balancing local and national institutions that deliver justice is a more sustainable peace-building project than regime change and top-down re-engineering of successor regimes. This and the first paper in this list developed field based original arguments about the causes of the long war in Afghanistan and for sustainable peace-making/building in the country. 

 

Braithwaite, J. and Wardak, A. (2011) 'Is Killing Taliban a Good Idea?’ Inside Story, 7 December (Accessible at: http://inside.org.au/is-killing-taliban-a-good-idea/)

 

This and the previous two papers are based on field work that Professors Wardak and Braithwaite conducted for the Australian National University’s Peace Building Compared research project during 2011 in Afghanistan. While most of the 114 interviews for this research were conducted during July and August 2011, other interviews were conducted with senior international military and other personnel (who had served in Afghanistan) in other countries since the principal fieldwork finished.  Respondents in Afghanistan included with NATO Generals, UN Special Representative for Afghanistan, ordinary people, Taliban soldiers and some of their former leaders – including Mullah Omar’s Foreign Minister. Reflecting on their insights from the fieldwork, Wardak and Braithwaite argue that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. Both the US-led NATO military strategists and the Taliban are wrong   by keeping up military pressure for a favourable negotiated outcome. The escalated military contest is likely to be as unwinnable as the war itself.  It is argued, in the article that is time for a ceasefire – and for political solution to this long war.

Panel Discussion

'Can peace return to Afghanistan? If yes, How and if no, Why Not?'

 

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