The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Alliance Program at Columbia University presents:
Book Event: The Taliban Courts in Afghanistan: Waging War by Law
Event Details:
Friday, October 10, 2025
12pm-2pm
1302 International Affairs Building
Zoom registration Link: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_g5KGqJygQ9yix09F7Ddkbw
Advance Registration Required. CUID Only.
With Adam Baczko, Author, The Taliban Courts in Afghanistan: Waging War by Law; Research Fellow, Center for International Studies, Sciences Po
Moderated by Sibghatullah Ghaznawi, Associate Research Scholar, Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University
Book Description:
Book Description:
How did the Taliban gain the trust of the Afghan population through decades of conflict? How did they put themselves in a position to regulate social relations? And with what consequences for Afghan society? Taliban Courts in Afghanistan: Waging War by Law argues that the movement achieved this not merely through military force or ideology, but by building a legal order.
While the international coalition sponsored a corrupt and inadequate justice system, the Taliban established hundreds of courts across the countryside. By emphasizing due process, impartiality of judges, and the enforcement of verdicts, these courts became one of the few predictable institutions in the daily lives of Afghans.
This book demonstrates that the Taliban used law strategically: to substantiate their claim to embody the state, to disseminate their vision of society, and to establish local legitimacy. Their courts attempted to balance the political agenda of the movement, the demands of Islamic law, the needs of the population, and the expectations of international legal actors whose implicit recognition they desired.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted between 2010 and 2016 across multiple Afghan provinces, with rare access to Taliban judges and court users, this research rethinks the place of law and courts in civil wars. It also sheds new light on why Western intervention failed and how the Taliban ultimately took over the country.
Author Biography:
Adam Baczko is a CNRS Research Associate Professor at the Centre for International Studies (CERI) of Sciences Po. His work focuses on the formation of legal institutions by armed movements and international actors in contexts of armed conflict, with extensive fieldwork conducted in Afghanistan, Syria, and Mali. He is the author of Taliban Courts in Afghanistan: Waging War by Law (Oxford University Press, 2023) and, with Gilles Dorronsoro and Arthur Quesnay, of Civil War in Syria: Mobilisation and Competing Social Orders (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
