The Asia Foundation (TAF) recently launched its Traditional Justice Project to document the current state of conflict management at the village level in East Timor and to disseminate information on informal dispute resolution practices around the country. TAF's research on traditional justice also will help build a new multilanguage legal glossary.

Fieldwork organized by TAF will collect and record traditional legal narratives, describing cases of conflict, how they were managed, and how they were settled. Researchers also hope to collect a variety of other texts, including folk narratives, set recitations, traditional stories, legends, and ancestral origin stories. Analysis of the narratives will reveal the underlying jurisprudence of traditional legal practices. TAF also intends to bring anthropologists and legal specialists together to help explain the significance of the traditional legal and cultural concepts.

Using its collection of detailed information on traditional law, TAF plans to create a multilanguage legal glossary, adding traditional legal terms from Tetum to the Portuguese, English, and Indonesian parts of the glossary. The glossary will be invaluable not only to judges, lawyers, and court interpreters, but also to legislators, policy makers, students, and anyone involved in the judicial system. And by documenting and translating a wide range of traditional concepts, the glossary will also play a major role in the expansion of Tetum as one of East Timor's official languages.

USAID supports the work of The Asia Foundation as it improves citizens' access to justice, helps balance the formal and informal justice sectors, and assists the policy and legislative processes.

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