Legal transplants as solutions for post-intervention criminal law reform: Afghanistan's Interim Criminal Procedure Code 2004

Following increased international involvement in post-intervention law reform, a fundamental concern is whether legal transplants are effective solutions for creating urgently required criminal law to promote rule of law and transitions from conflict to peace. This paper examines Afghanistan's Interim Criminal Procedure Code 2004 (ICPC), one the most recent examples of a transplanted criminal law introduced in a post-intervention state. The Article applies an evaluative test to the ICPC using quantitative data supported by original qualitative research consisting of interviews with senior Afghan and international legal personnel. It finds that the Code has not been successful. This is a result of the many challenges facing the reform of the state justice system. In addition, the processes of transplantation and the transplanted content of the Code have reduced the extent to which it has been accepted and achieved its objectives. The reasonable-ness of relying on a legal transplant as a solution for creating new law will depend on the sensitivity with which it is employed. This requires knowledge of legal transplant feasibility, local history and legal traditions as well as reflection on the potential of successful reception of the law before its implementation.