User:SvenKram/sandbox

The Institute for Law and Society in Afghanistan e.V. (ILSAF) is an association founded in 2022 in Paderborn, Germany, which deals with the understanding of law and society in Afghanistan. The association was founded against the background of the regime change in Kabul, as many Afghan academics no longer had any prospects of career opportunities. The scientist Dr. Tilmann J. Röder, who worked in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2018, founded the institute as a new academic association for his Afghan colleagues. In addition, the newly established association fills the gap between those organizations dissolved in 2021 in Kabul such as the Hamida Barmaki Organization for the Rule of Law (HBORL) and the Afghan Legal Research and Development Organization (ALRDO). The main objectives of the association are to network interested academics, to provide open access to research results, and to design and implement science-based projects. The Institute for Law and Society in Afghanistan was registered as an association under german law and is independent and politically neutral according to its statutes. The term "law and society" is explicitly defined broadly by the Institute to include not only all forms of state law, but also international law, islamic law, customary law, and their respective institutions and practices.

Board of directors and advisory board
The board of ILSAF e.V. consists of the international business lawyer Dr. Suhailah Akbari, the junior professor of islamic theology Idris Nassery and the German academic Dr. Tilmann J. Röder. Islamic scholar and former law professor Dr. Mohammad Hashim Kamali is the chairman of ILSAF's advisory board. All members of the Institute cooperate in thematic working groups and deal with normative issues concerning Islam.

Main activities
Once a year, a public event is held at the University of Paderborn, which is also made accessible to international participants via livestream. ILSAF continues the series of Afghan Legal Studies Conferences that took place in Kabul between 2014 and 2019. The event will feature panels on Public law, Private law, Criminal law, international Public law, Islamic law, and present interdesciplinary studies. In addition, the Journal for Afghan Legal Studies (JALS) is published annually. Originally established as the Yearbook of Afghan Legal Studies in 2015, the journal has been published in Kabul since 2016. It is the only peer-reviewed Afghan legal journal. The founding editors Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Tilmann J. Röder, Luftforahaman Saeed added Suhailah Akbari and Wali M. Naseh as co-editors in 2021. In 2022, the editorial board was expanded to include Idris Nassery. The association publishes the Journal for Afghan Legal Studies as an open access online journal. ILSAF also continues the Afghan Legal Studies project, which was founded in 2011 at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. The project formed the academic part of the Institute's rule of law projects, which was later transferred to the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and Rule of Law. These academic activities included helping Afghan law schools establish LL.M. programs and the Hamida Barmaki Ph.D. Scholarship Program, which was funded by the German Foreign Office between 2012 and 2017 and then continued voluntarily by dedicated academics. ILSAF has relaunched the program as the Young Scholars Program. While supporting some of the remaining Hamida-Barmaki Scholars, the Institute is now also focusing on talented Afghan scholars who have left the country and intend to pursue doctoral studies in law, Islamic studies, or a related field.