APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 5 Integrating Principles and Practices in Somaliland 5 peacebuilding and conflict transformation fields was also undertaken.14 Restorative justice literature provided insight into restorative and punitive justice models, exploring community-based and criminal justice–oriented processes and transformative justice.15 Fieldwork conducted from 2008 to 2010 represents the main source of research material for this study. It included individual interviews with aqils, sultans, and odays, women, youths, academics and lawyers, and members of local and international NGOs. Focus groups of elders, women, and youth were conducted in Hargeisa, the largest city and capital of Somaliland, and in the western and eastern regions of the territory. More qualitative data on perceptions of differences between customary law and conflict transformation were gathered during a graduate certificate course on peacebuilding at the University of Hargeisa. A group of forty-five Somalilanders, among them government officials, heads of NGOs, academics, and business people, were asked on a written questionnaire to compare customary law and conflict transformation values, analytical techniques, strategies, practices, and goals. Their responses are reflected in Table 1. The outcomes of the research point to a clear relationship in terms of similarities between customary law and conflict transformation, but also show how they differ. Customary law focuses on conflict resolution, or stopping conflict in the short term. Although it incorporates efforts to determine the root causes of the conflict, in-depth analysis of conflicts and intervention for long-term social stability are not fully part of the customary law process. In contrast, conflict transformation seeks short-term as well as long-term solutions to problems through the transformation of individuals, relationships, cultures, and structures.16 Conflict resolution in the context of Somaliland—regarding land disputes, personal harm, or even murder—tilts in this direction, but does not go far enough in engaging larger systems or structures in a way that would more effectively prevent future conflicts. This research suggests that customary law—harmonized with conflict transformation values and practices—and civil law can be connected by restorative justice. Since Somaliland is expanding its use of civil law to deal with complex conflicts and crime, restorative justice principles and practices might represent the bridge necessary to conjoin the civil and customary systems. Restorative justice has played this type of role in other contexts. In New Zealand, for example, it is an important connection between the indigenous Maoris and their traditional problem-solving practices and the country’s civil courts.17 Through a series of peace and reconciliation conferences between the SNM, elders, and community members, a final peace accord was reached in 1997. 14. D. Fry, The Human Potential for Peace (New York, Oxford University Press, 2006); Schirch, The Little Book of Strategic Peacebuilding; C. Sampson and M. Abu-Nimer, Positive Approaches to Peacebuilding (Washington, D.C., PACT Publications, 2003); L. Reychler and T. Paffenholz, Peacebuilding: A Field Guide (Boulder, Colorado, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001). 15. Johnstone, Restorative Justice; Zehr and Towes, Critical Issues in Restorative Justice. 16. John Paul Lederach, The Little Book of Conflict Resolution (Intercourse, Pennsylvania, Good Books, 2003). 17. G. Maxwell, A. Morris, and H. Hayes, ‘Conferencing and restorative justice’ in Sullivan and Tifft, Handbook of Restorative Justice.