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Speaker: J Alexander Thier, Consultant, Asia Foundation
Afghanistan has had multiple constitutions in the past fifty years, the latest having been drafted
as a result of the Bonn Agreement in December 2001. This most recent draft incorporates Islamic
jurisprudence and its role in the rule of law and governance. The talk will discuss: (1) how Afghanistan?s new constitution has incorporated Islamic jurisprudence; (2) the implications of the constitution for the peace process; and (3) the implications of the constitution for external relations with South Asia and
the region.
J. Alexander Thier is an Asia Foundation consultant to Afghanistan?s Constitutional and Judicial
Reform Commissions in Kabul, and has been a consultant to the International Crisis Group, the British
Department for International Development, and the Governance in War-Torn Societies Project of the
Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University. He worked in Afghanistan from 1993?96
and was the Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Assistance to Afghanistan (UNOCHA) in Kabul, and was Coordination Officer for the UN Iraq
Program (?Oil for Food?) in New York. Mr. Thier holds a law degree from Stanford Law School, an
MALD from the Fletcher School, and was a graduate fellow at the Stanford Center on Conflict and
Negotiation.
Mr. Thier is the co-author of a newly released book, Nation-Building Unraveled: Aid Peace and
Justice in Afghanistan (Kumerian, 2003) and of the forthcoming book, Twenty-first Century Peace
Operations (United States Institute of Peace, 2003). He is also the co-author of the report, Afghanistan?s
Political and Constitutional Development (ODI, 2003), and principal author of the International Crisis
Groups reports, The Afghan Transitional Administration: Prospects and Perils (July 2002) and The Loya
Jirga: One Small Step Forward? (May 2002). He co-authored, with Jarat Chopra, ?The Road Ahead:
Political and Institutional Reconstruction in Afghanistan,? Third World Quarterly, 23:5, 2002.
This seminar is co-sponsored by the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at
the Stanford Institute for International Studies.
Hosted by the South Asia Intiative at APARC and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Both are Centers within the Stanford Institute for International Studies.