The compilation is an interesting pot-pourri which deals with the role of the Judiciary in the resolution of ethnic conflicts which arise in plural societies. Three Asian and two African societies feature in the volume, namely, Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines, Tanzania and Mazambique. One of the facet in focus, broadly speaking, has been the determination of the legitimate limits of judicial intervention in the fields of preference and reservation policies in education and employment. Another facet which has been scrutinized has been in respect of the protection of human rights, particularly the civil and political rights of dissentient minority groups. The various contributors to the volume have tried to reconcile the duality, if not the plurality of the local systems in such societies on account of the superimposition of the formal legal system imposed by the colonial order upon the continuing indigenous and customary legal systems.
Sept-Oct 1989, volume 13, No 5