Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam

In his book, Legal Pluralism in Contemporary Ethiopia (2010), Weldemariam, following the tack taken by professor Andreas Eshete (PhD, Yale), defends multination federalism in line with the nonideal theory of John Rawls under unfavorable conditions. He contends that legal pluralism is an important federalist policy in a pluralist society such as Ethiopia. He does so by telling the story of the suppression of the diverse customary and religious laws in the country's recent past as part of the larger history of ethnic homogenization and state centralization. Since 1957, customary and religious laws had been alienated from the state legal system by virtue of the great influx of Western transplants providing the setting for competition between legal universalism and legal pluralism. In 1995, legal pluralism triumphs over legal universalism, as the 1995 FDRE Constitution recognizes the validity of customary and religious laws in personal and family matters. He analyzes the salient elements of legal pluralism in Ethiopia, argues for redrawing the frontiers of formal legal pluralism in such a manner as to include criminal matters, and points out the challenges. Professor Andreas Eshete described the work as one that "examined Ethiopia’s new experiment in federalism with care and fresh insight" Professor Donald N. Levine of the University of Chicago gives his testimonial in the following words: "Alemayehu’s work has prodded me to think afresh and offers facts, sources, and analyses from which I have learned a good deal. Indeed, regarding Ethiopia’s regime of ethnic federalism, he has prodded me to change my mind somewhat. That is not a bad litmus test of any scholar." Professor Levine refers to him as "more of a social scientist-philosopher at heart than a lawyer, albeit an astute legal analyst."

Following the re-release of Judge Birtukan Mideksa from prison on 6 October 2010, he wrote a critical piece exposing the motive behind the decision and particular procedure selected for her release. He criticized the regime for harbouring an ill will to crush the morale of the judge not only by incarceration, but also by selecting procedures ill fitted for securing her freedom from prison like forcing her to confess and request for pardon as well as for being hell-bent on destroying her political career. In his The Unbearable Lightness of Pardon: Reflections on Birtukan’s Second Sailing, he contends that both of her sailings out of prison proved to all the unbearable lightness of pardons in Ethiopia. In spite of the inhumane treatment Birtukan received in the hands of her jailors, one thing that is certain is that she will remain to be a source of inspiration for all who work the betterment of the human condition in Ethiopia.

Alemayehu Weldemariam graduated summa cum laude with a master of arts in peace and conflict studies from the European University Center for Peace Studies, at Stadtschlaining, Austria, in April 2009, where he was also a fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar. Besides, he was a fellow of the Academy for International Business Officials, in Beijing, China. Moreover, he received an LL.B degree from Addis Ababa University School of Law in July 2005. He was a guest scholar at the University of Chicago in November 2011 and lectured at Villanova University, outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has been a scholar-in-residence at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin and Austin Community College. He is currently appointed as a visiting professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences at Suffolk University.

His work as human rights activist figures in prominently in his advocacy for freedom of the press, worship, conscience, and association. He also advocated for release of Judge Birtukan Mideksa, leader of Unity for Democracy and Justice, the major opposition party in Ethiopia, against the rise of authoritarianism, and his critique of the Ethiopian national security and foreign policy in many of his writings. He was nominated for the Lorenzo Natali Prize for Excellence in Reporting on Human Rights for the year 2009 for his Ethiopia: On forgiveness, reconciliation, and pardon, an article published in Sudan Tribune.

In an interview with the Reporter (2008), the Amharic private bi-weekly, Weldemariam made an incisive analysis of Ethiopian politics and the role of political parties in the country as well as ethnic animosity in Ethiopian institutions of higher learning. Weldemariam's incisive analysis bears on the future of democratization in general and free and fair elections in particular in Ethiopia. Invoking Weldemariam's observation, Wondwosen Teshome (2009, 822)of the University of Vienna writes, “In fact, frustrated by the fragmentation of opposition parties and the refusal of many African incumbents to hand over power peacefully some political observers felt that unless the army stages a coup it is not possible to remove electoral autocrats democratically.”

In a series of articles, Weldemariam engaged in a constructive criticism of Ethiopia's national security and foreign policy in which he unmasked the incumbent's obsession with territorial security to the detriment of human security. More particularly, he criticizes Ethiopia for its military misadventures in Somalia in December 2006. He also prognosticated a possible cooling in the Ethiopian American relations as result of foreseeable diplomatic wrangles over the grim domestic human rights situation. His criticism never went without provoking an official response from the foreign policy establishment. A case in point is the publication of 'A Bogus Call for a Paradigm Shift-Ethiopia's Foreign Affairs and National Security Policy and Strategy', in A Week in the Horn, the e-weekly of The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the official response, the Foreign Ministry wrote "Alemayehu Fentaw does not just miss these central elements of the Policy and Strategy instrument. He concocts facts and makes unsubstantiated allegations. One is the suggestion that US-Ethiopia relations would cool under the new US administration. In fact, as is obvious, the relationship between the two countries is thriving."

Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam, born on June 8, 1980, at Alamata, Tigray, formerly Wollo, Ethiopia, is a lawyer, theorist, conflict analyst, and a public intellectual.