Equality, Plurality and Personal Status Laws

Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron is a senior researcher at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), France, and adjunct faculty at Sciences Po Paris.Baudouin Dupret is a directeur de recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, at Sciences Po Bordeaux, and visiting professor at the University of Louvain, Belgium.Jean-Louis Halperin is a professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France, emeritus since January 1, 2026.Radhika Kanchana is a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for the Theory and Analysis of Law (CTAD) at the University of Paris Nanterre, France.Ayang Utriza Yakin is an assistant professor of Islamic Legal and Ethical Tradition at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), Brunei Darussalam, and a research associate at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium, and at Sciences Po Bordeaux, France. Zohra Aziadé Zemirli is an associate researcher in law at Centre Arabe de Recherches et d’Etudes Politiques (CAREP), France and a postdoctoral fellow at Centre Population et Développement (Ceped), Université Paris Cité, IRD, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Inserm.

• Preface; Introduction, Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron, Baudouin Dupret and Jean-Louis Halpérin; Part 1: Personal Status Laws and Minorities; 1. Personal Status in Historical Context, Jean-Louis Halpérin; 2. Accounting for Legal Pluralism in Action: A Case Study of Interfaith Marriage in Indonesia and its Praxeological Implications, Ayang Utriza Yakin and Baudouin Dupret; 3. Countries Falling Outside the Scope of the Research, Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron and Zohra Aziadé Zemirli; 4. From a Static Typology to a Typology of Dynamic Tensions, Jean-Louis Halpérin, Radhika Kanchana and Zohra Aziadé Zemirli; Part 2: Countries Witnessing Tensions with the Principle of Equality; 5. The Imbroglio of Personal Status in Cameroon between Multi-Ethnicity, Multiculturalism and Equality, Thérèse Atangana-Malongue; 6. The Long-Standing Quest for the Unification of Egyptian Family Law, Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron and Karim El-Chazli; 7. Personal Status Laws in India: An Ambiguous Path Towards a Uniform Civil Code, Jean-Philippe Dequen; 8. Personal Status Law in Indonesia: Discursive and Practical Debate on Equality (Between Muslims and Non-Muslims), Euis Nurlaelawati; 9. Personal Status Law in Israel: A Country Witnessing Tensions with the Principle of Equality, Ido Shahar; 10. Kadhi Courts and the Persistence of Legal Pluralism in Kenya's Family Law System, Zohra Aziadé Zemirli; 11. The Principle of Equality and the Pluralism of Personal Status: Reflections based on the Lebanese System, Léna Gannagé; 12. Personal Law in Malaysia: A Tale of Different Systems – Tensions between Plurality and Equality, Kerstin Steiner; 13. Legal and Religious Pluralism in Nigeria, Deborah Scolart; 14. Palestine: "Yasser Arafat Could Have Done What Bourguiba Did, but There's No Room for That Now", Lynn Welchman; 15. Equality in Senegalese Law: Senegal's Family Code on a Knife-Edge, Marième N'diaye; 16. Equality and Plural Personal Status Laws in Tanzania: Tensions between Customary Law, State Law, and International Law, Laurean L. Mussa and Erin E. Stiles; Part 3: Countries Witnessing Gaps in the Implementation of Legal Pluralism in Practice; 17. Examining the Gaps: Implementation of Personal Status Laws and Constitutional Inequality in Bangladesh, Anisur Rahman; 18. Through an Islamic Lens: Inequalities in Brunei's Personal Status Laws, Ann E. Black; 19. Shi'i Jurisprudence and the Structure of Personal Status Law in Iran, Hengameh Hoveyda; 20. The Vicissitudes of Personal Status Pluralism in Iraq: A New Tower of Babel?, Harith Al-Dabbagh; 21. The Absence of a Unified Civil Code in Jordan: Implications for Women and Religious Minorities, Zohra Aziadé Zemirli; 22. Statutory Weakening and Bureaucratic Hurdles in the Implementation of Legal Pluralism in Myanmar, Elizabeth Rhoads; 23. A Right to Inequality? Islam and the Development of Pakistan's Personal Status Law System from Independence to the Present, Martin Lau; 24. Sudan's Legal Framework on Personal Status Laws, Equality and non-Discrimination, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker; 25. From Confessional Mosaic to Legal Mosaic: Syrian Personal Status Codes, Tarek Al Asfary; Part 4: Countries Witnessing Mild Tension with the Principle of Equality; 26. Personal Status Laws in Ethiopia: a Country Witnessing Tensions with the Principle of Equality, Katrin Seidel; 27. A Near Theocracy for Personal Status – Gender-Based Discrimination in The Gambia's Marriage and Divorce Laws, Raeesa Rajmohamed; 28. Plurality of Personal Status Laws in Ghana, a Country Witnessing Tensions with the Principle of Equality, Fulera Issaka-Toure; 29. The Mufti System and Islamic Law in Western Thrace, Greece, Yüksel Sezgin; 30. Jewish Law in a Muslim Country: The Survival of Rabbinical Courts in Morocco, Tachfine Baida; 31. The Case of Muslimness in Filipino Legal Pluralism, Megumi Kagawa; 32. Challenges to the Applicability of the Principle of Equality: The Case of Formal and Informal Jurisdictions in Niger, Mali and Chad, Abdou Samadou Yahaya; 33. Personal Laws in Singapore: A Balancing Act between Plurality and Equality, Kerstin Steiner; 34. Constitutional Preservation of Inequalities: Application of Personal Status Laws in Sri Lanka, Binendri Perera; 35. Legal Pluralism Tolerated: The Implementation of Sharia Law in Thailand's Southernmost, Eugénie Mérieau