Authored By: Wendy Sehlaga
University of Johannesburg
Abstract
Across the globe, legal pluralism and cultural diversity has caused controversy. One of the most thought provoking part of it is “Can One Legal System Accommodate Many Cultures?”. The idea of what happens when the ancient cultural customs enter modern courts regulated by modern legal systems that are constantly evolving has sparked intense debate. This article will explore the concept of legal pluralism and cultural diversity. It will further examine how cultural diversity can be accommodated within one legal system. Through the analysis and research on countries such as India, South Africa, Nigeria and Bolivia. This article will thereby highlight how one legal system can accommodate many cultures while upholding the state law. This article aims to provide insights and deeper understanding of legal pluralism and how legal systems accommodate diverse cultures.
Thesis: One legal system can be able to accommodate different diverse legal systems. However, doing so requires a careful implementation of legislations, judicial and constitutional legal mechanisms to protect the fundamental human rights.
Introduction: Understanding Legal Pluralism and Cultural Diversity
Legal pluralism means multiple legal systems coexisting within a legal political or social space. It encompasses the interaction and overlap of legal orders, including state law, customary law and religious legal systems.1 Cultural diversity means multiple different cultural and ethnic groups of individuals that exist within societies. Practically, the core of cultural diversity is bringing a diverse group of people together in a way that acknowledges and celebrates their differences. These differences could be race, gender, age, socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, sexual orientation or abilities.2 Legal pluralism matters in societies as it recognizes the existing diverse cultures within different societies.
Legal pluralism and cultural diversity are important as the tensions between state and non-state legal systems can either build or destruct a society. While using different legal system can cause obstacles it contributes to creating a stable, fair and just societies by not overriding normative systems like family, religious or customary law. Culture enters law in various ways. Examples include Indian personal law in India, African customary law in South Africa, Sharia law in Nigeria and Indigenous legal systems in Bolivia.
International Framework:
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007, provides a global framework for efforts to advance indigenous peoples’ rights. Together with other human rights instruments and growing human rights jurisprudence concerning indigenous peoples, the Declaration contains crucial guidance for building societies that ensure full equality and rights of indigenous peoples.3 The implementation of United Nations Declaration Rights of Indigenous People eliminates discrimination, oppression and promotes inclusivity and other forms of social-norms within societies. It directly challenges the legal centralism by affirming the rights of the indigenous people to maintain customary laws and national legal systems. The UNESCO’s approach about culture, indirectly supports legal pluralism by emphasizing cultural rights and diversity.
The 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions expands on the 2001 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. It aims to promote and protect diverse cultural expressions. It promotes intercultural dialogue and creates a diverse cultural environment, thereby allowing diverse cultural and legal systems. It is essential to ensure harmony and interaction within the diverse cultural societies. The policies for diverse cultural inclusivity and people’s participations are guarantees of social harmony and peaceful societies. Thus defined, cultural pluralism gives policy expression to the reality of cultural diversity. In dissociable from a democratic framework, cultural pluralism is conducive to cultural exchange and to the flourishing of creative capacities that sustain public life.4
Comparative Analysis:
The Indian personal laws are rules that are based on religion governing matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, succession, maintenance for various different families including Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Parsis. The personal laws do not apply to the entire population but to members of the specific religious communities. The government of India plays a role in balancing religious freedom with the fundamental human rights. It administers and reform personal laws to ensure that they lawfully align with the constitutional principles. The issue relating to a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) has been debated since the time of Indian independence.5 Despite calls for a Uniform Civil Code from the time of the drafting of the Constitution, personal laws have been largely been left untouched by all the governments in power.6 This highlights the tension between the single legal system, state secular and also the protection of cultural and religious diversity.
African customary laws are historical unwritten rules, practices and customs of indigenous African ethnic diverse groups. It is usually applied in matters such as marriage, succession and family disputes within the diverse cultural backgrounds. Till the present day, customary law continues to exist alongside common law, state legislation and religious law in most of the African countries including South Africa where the Constitution protects and recognizes it. South African legal system ensures that customary law and practices align with constitutional principles. For example, the South African Constitution recognizes customary law on the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998 under Section 211 of the Constitution. South Africa is a secular state, with freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution. The Constitution of South Africa promotes and recognizes diversity and inclusion.7
Nigeria consists of legal pluralism as it has multiple different legal systems coexisting such as Sharia law. Sharia is not applied uniformly to everyone in Nigeria. Sharia operates in Nigeria’s 12 northern states, Federal Capital Territory and customary courts in majority of the 36 states in Nigeria. In its traditional context, Sharia is Islamic legislation.8 Nigeria established Sharia Courts that deal with cases concerning Islamic law. The Constitution of Nigeria under Section 38 guarantees everyone in Nigeria the right to freedom religion which allows anyone to practice any religion of their choice.9 This upholds the Nigeria’s pluralism by allowing multiple different legal systems to coexist within the societies. In certain instances, cultural customs contradict the constitutional principles. For instance, the landmark ruling in Mojekwu v Mojekwu case about the inheritance of property by the appellant under the Ili-Ekpe customary law which denied females inheritance rights. The court ruled that females have inheritance rights and any customs that discriminates on the grounds of sex are unconstitutional under the Nigerian Constitution of 1979.10 This case highlighted the states fulfillment of the obligation to uphold fundamental human rights of everyone while accommodating diverse cultural customs in one legal system.
Bolivia recognizes the indigenous legal systems of the rights of Bolivia indigenous people. The 2009 Bolivia Constitution grants rights to indigenous peoples within Bolivian state recognizing cultural diversity. The bulk of Bolivia’s new constitutional regime for indigenous rights is contained in Article 171, which was adapted from the 1991 Colombian Constitution.11 This allows indigenous legal systems to freely exercise their own cultural and traditional forms of justice within the society while upholding the constitutional principles. The land dispute within a Bolivia highland indigenous community resulted in a disagreement between different local forms of political and judicial authority. It highlights internal tensions that occurred of recognizing indigenous legal systems to formally recognize legal plurality. 12 This demonstrates that the state’s legal recognition of Indigenous justice in Bolivia does not resolve the internal conflicts between the customary norms and the states legal standards within the Bolivia. It highlights the tension between what the community perceives as fair and constitutional rules of procedural fairness and rights.
Conclusion:
While the different countries have their own different legal systems, they encounter challenges with maintaining diverse customary law and state law. From the different constitutional recognition in various mentioned countries, the countries still work towards upholding constitutional norms and cultural diversity. Even though the countries face ongoing challenges that are related to fundamental human rights, codification, and jurisdictional boundaries they still manage to develop legal systems to accommodate cultural diversity in one state aligning them with the constitutional norms. The aim is to balance respect for cultural diversity and legal pluralism in one legal system.
Reference(S):
1John Griffiths, “What is Legal Pluralism” (1986) 24 Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 1
2 Saranne Durham, “What is Cultural Diversity” (2025)
3 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (2007) art 4.
4 UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001) France, Paris art 2.
5 Raya Hazarika ‘Should India Have a Uniform Civil Code?’ 27 Oct 2010.
6 Lekshmi Parameswaran ‘History of Personal Laws in India’ (2020) April 2020 5.
7 The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996.
8 Taiwo Ayo Oriola, ‘The Sharia Crisis in Nigeria: An Insider View’ (2001) 44 Ife Psychologia <https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/EJC38950>accessed 26 September 2025
9 The Constitution of Nigeria, 1999.
10 Mojekwu v Mojekwu [1997] 7 NWLR 283
11 Donna Lee Van Cott, ‘A Political Analysis of Legal Pluralism in Bolivia and Colombia’ (2000) 32 J Lat Amer Stud 207-234, 225.
12 Matthew Doyle, ‘The Case of Piruani: Contested Justice, Legal Pluralism, and Indigeneity in Highland Bolivia’ (2021) 44 (1) Political and Legal Anthropology Review 60 <https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12424 >accessed 26 September 2025
