Legal education as development

In 2003, I found myself at the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, a shabby relic of the 1960s famous for surviving rocket attacks, the occasional murder, and intermittent power and water. I led a multinational team with a mandate to educate Afghan law professors about ‘modern’ law. This includes the mélange that is now their own law: a hasty overlay of donor-assisted laws from post-2001 reconstruction that have yet to be integrated with Afghanistan’s existing statutes, shari’a and customary legal systems.1 31 million people, 34 provinces, 35 languages (none of which I speak), all in a country ‘slightly smaller than Texas.’2 Landing in Kabul tends to make you ask questions like ‘What am I doing here?’ This chapter in memory of Malcolm Smith is a partial answer.