CH.

12
Dangers
Main Threat
 Those who would re-impose a central government
and statutory law
Main arguments
Legislation is needed to:
 Strengthen and unify customary law

 Form a nationwide judiciary, police and military

 Develop the Somali economy (particularly its

infrastructure)
 Make treaties with foreign government agencies

 Bring Somalia into the family of democratic nations

 Make treaties with foreign government agencies

 Somalis have long dealt with foreign governments and

their agencies on a clan-by-clan basis
 A common ministry of foreign affairs would pose a
grave danger
 Treatise that undermine customary law
 If some clans perceive a need for a common policy
 A private company as their common agent.
 This would ensure that:
 No clan would have to obey or pay the costs of a foreign policy
with which it disagreed
 No treaty would be ratified that would change any clan´s
customary laws
The “family of democratic nations”
 Democracy– “real government”
 The end of customary law
 The Somali system of politics and law is
incompatible with democracy
 Superior
 Multi-clan political parties = impossible
Democracy violates a number of
fundamental rights:
 To defend oneself
 To choose one´s own court of law
 To enter into mutually agreeable contracts with people
of one´s choice
 To freely engage in economic activities of one´s choice
 To freely dispose of one´s rewards for services
rendered
 To educate one´s children
 To leave and re-enter one´s country
 To operate in open markets
Democratic governments violate these
rights by:
 Maintaining a monopoly of all police and judicial
services
 Conscripting people for their armies
 Levying taxes
 Imposing passport and visa requirements
 Subsidizing one´s competitors
The United Nations
 The founding Charter of the UN looks to human
rights as the principle that should guide all political
activity, not democracy
 The idea that the UN should embrace democracy
was not clearly articulated until 1948, when its
General Assembly adopted the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
Foreign Governments
 Kritarchy VS Democracy
CH. 13
Summary and Conclusion
The Somalis are far from lawless…
 They have an elaborate indigenous law system that
is basically sound, more so even than most legal
systems in the world today
 Every Somali is knowledgeable about the law and
is active in politics
 Huge network of hundreds of mini-governments
 Independent of each other
 “Familial Government”
 Approach to crime
 Criminals compensate their victims
 The job of re-educating criminals is left to the
respective families. A
 Every person is insured against liabilities he might
incur under the law
 Their judges and policemen do not maintain an
office
 No fixed costs.
 Small fees for their services.
 Those seeking justice pay themselves,
 No need for tax-levying bureaucracy.
Historical Developments
 Democratic system from 1960 to 1969
 “Those who rule and those who are ruled”
 1969 – a dictator put an end to democracy
 22 years of suffering
 Somalis prefer their own system, which is suited to
prevent the rise of a dictator
The UN and Democracy
 The UNs continuing effort to establish a democracy
in Somalia suggests that its policy makers may not
be wholly aware of democracy’s many weaknesses.
 Democracy doesn´t work in countries where the
population is composed of close-knit ethnic groups
and the only viable political parties are those
formed along ethnic lines.
 People always vote for their group’s political party,
and not on the issues.
If Somalia were to go democratic…

 Government would be controlled by an alliance of

several clans
 Those clans that didn’t share in the spoils of
political power would rebel and try to secede
 That would prompt the ruling clans to use every
means to suppress these centrifugal forces
 Ultimately one of the ruling clans would eject its
partners from the ruling alliance
 In the end, all clans would fight with one another
The Future of Somalia
 Independent insurance companies will take over the
insurance burden of the clans and a large part of the
litigation.
 Establishment of freeports
 Tremendous boost to the Somali economy
 It will put the Somalis in contact with a variety of other
cultures and increase the level of tolerance
 Eventually, coordinating agencies may develop
through a process of trial and error.
 But the clans will never accept a federal system of
government
The Future of Somali Law
 The law develops best and fastest when exposed to
the hustle bustle of daily living
 A documentation centre
 Everyone has access to it, anyone can try to improve it,
and no one, least of all governments, will control it
 The Three Monsters
 Anarchy: shows itself
whenever the warlords find
people willing to help them
seek power over other Somalis

 Democracy: will be let loose

when the UN insists on
majority rule as a prerequisite
for UN recognition

 Dictatorship: will show up

when the UN promotes the
idea of a central government in
Somalia based on federal or
confederate principles
CH- 14
PROSPECTS
Political Stability Today
 Media’s job in portraying Somalia
 Advantages of Stateless country
 Peace
 Bossaso
 Perfect model of laissez-faire
 Wide commerce
 Entrepreneurs
 No bureaucratic interference
 Example: Water & Electricity
 Long recovery
Natural Resources & Business
Opportunities
 Concerns:
 Uncertainly
 September 11, 2001
 Opportunities
 Coca Cola
 Airlines
 5 Star Hotels
Natural Resources & Business
Opportunities
 Resources: copper, zinc, lead, etc.
 Opportunities:
 Cheap for launching commercial satellites into space
 Transportation
 Enterprises: fishing, forestry, agriculture,
horticulture and tourism.
 Agriculture: mango, bananas, sugar, cotton, dried
fruits.
Public Goods as an Economic Opportunity

 Economic activity is stimulated by completely free

interplay b/w invertors, entrepreneurs, and
engineers.
 Developing economy needs no taxation
 Example:
 Water & Electricity
 Hong Kong
Strategies for Economic Development

 Road Building
 Building roads and port facilitates
 Turn coastline into major assets
 Facilities on the 2 sides of the Horn- on the Indian
Ocean and the Gulf of Eden
 Opportunity: inefficient seaport in Mombassa
 Example: Jim Davidson & Michael van Notten
 Freeport
CH. 15
Hong Kong Succes
Freeport-Clan
APPENDIX A
CASE LAW
APPENDIX B
WHAT IS KRITARCHY?
Definition
 “Stateless” & based on customary law rather than
statutory law.
 Is not extinct but highly developed juridical system
 Looks to the future note the past
 Example: Somalia
Rules of Law
 Based on equal justice for all and natural law
 Police, political are denied any power, privilege or
immunity, can’t use coercive monopoly.
 No distinction b/w subjects and rulers
 Freedom
 Commitment to justice manifests in its political
system, which guarantees a free-market for the
enterprise of justice
Origin of the Term
 Kritarchy: is a political system in which justice
(more exactly the judgment that seeks to determine
justice) is the ruling principle of first cause.

 Not to be compared to “monarchy” or “oligarchy”

 Kritarchy don’t “pick”, judges are picked

Historical Approximations
 Hebrews

 Celtic and Germanic

 Has evolved
 Colonial powers
 submerged
Democracy