Dr. Janine Ubink

Position:
  • Senior Lecturer
Expertise:
  • African law
  • Legal anthropology
  • Land law
  • Customary law
  • Rule of law


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 7262
E-Mail: j.ubink@law.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit Rechtsgeleerdheid, Instituut voor Metajuridica, Recht en bestuur ontwikkelingslanden/VVI
Office Address: Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw
Steenschuur 25
2311 ES Leiden
Room number B318

Janine Ubink is a senior lecturer at the Van Vollenhoven Institute. She has studied international law at Leiden University and started working with the institute in 2001. In 2008 she published her dissertation entitled ‘In the Land of the Chiefs: Customary law, land conflicts, and the role of the state in peri-urban Ghana’. In this study she focused on the mutually constitutive relationship between chieftaincy and the state in a legally plural arena, and its effects on local practices of customary land management in a region where the traditional system is very important and chiefs are much revered. The study contributes to debates on the relationship between tenure security and different systems of land tenure, on the continued relevance of traditional leadership and popular perceptions of the legitimacy of this institution, and on the negotiability of customary law. It furthermore provides insights into the way officials – judges, lawmakers, policymakers, and administrators – apply and interpret customary law. For this research, Janine spent a total of sixteen months in Ghana to gather data through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and a survey.

Besides her PhD-research, Janine has been involved in the coordination and editing work regarding the 3-year project The Mystery of Legal Failure? A critical, comparative examination of the potential of legalization of land assets in developing countries for achieving real legal certainty. This project compared the design, implementation and outcomes of legalization programs in eight countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It specifically focused on the tenure security of smallholders. In 2009, this led to the publication ‘Legalising Land Rights: Local practices, state responses and tenure security in Africa, Asia and Latin America’.

Janine has just completed a research cooperation with IDLO (International Law and Development Organization, Rome) funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This research, entitled The Role of Customary Justice Systems in the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, focused on the possibilities for legal empowerment of marginalized groups through an engagement with customary law. It aimed to inform the international donor community, which currently displays a growing interest in the role of non-state justice in legal development cooperation. This comparative project focused on legal empowerment initiatives in a number of countries in Asia and Africa. As part of the project Janine has conducted a field study in Namibia, regarding empowerment of women under customary law and administration in Uukwambi Traditional Authority. This  project has resulted in several publications (see under the tab "published work" at the top of this page)

Janine has just been awarded a prestigious NWO-VENI research grant for innovative research talent. This research on ‘customary legal empowerment’ continues and expands on Janine’s earlier research. Since the start of her PhD-project she has been interested in building a theory of customary change and its effects on marginalized community members. Her PhD-research focused on the effects of the commodification of land on customary tenure in Ghana. Later research studied the impact of projects to legalize customary property rights, in eight countries in Africa, Asia and Latin-America. Her most recent project analysed the functioning of customary justice systems and the possible role of such systems in legal empowerment programs. The study that will be undertaken with the VENI research grant will again focus on the legal empowerment of marginalized groups in a context of strong customary justice systems. 

Apart from research, Janine is active as lecturer at Leiden University’s law school, Leiden University College and in the Leiden based Research Masters African Law, as well as at New York University’s School of Law, where she is a member of the Global Faculty since 2009. She teaches courses in Law and Governance in Africa, Law, Society and Development, Justice, Legal Systems Worldwide, Governance and the Legal Framework, and Law and Culture. She further (co-) supervises master and PhD-students and coordinates the institute’s Africa activities.  


Web Editors Leiden Law School
Last Modified: 31-01-2013