Customary law in Afghanistan needs to be understood in the context of the semi-autonomous segregated societies that have made up the Afghan landscape. These are self-defined by ethnicity or geographical location/boundaries. As the practice of customary law can be an identifying marker of a geographical group or ethnicity, legislation in the case of Afghan customary law needs to be understood outside the more common state-bound usage. Legislation occurs where adjudication takes place by the perso…