2011] Federalism and Legal Pluralism in Ethiopia 173 * Assistant Professor & Associate Dean, Faculty of Law, Addis-Ababa University. Email: <getaassefa@yahoo.com>. FEDERALISM AND LEGAL PLURALISM IN ETHIOPIA: PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR IMPACTS ON THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Getachew Assefa * ABSTRACT Through its 1995 Constitution, Ethiopia created a devolutionary federal state structure that is devised as a means of holding together the polity. The new political system combines federalism, self determination (up to and including secession) and legal pluralism as solutions to the erstwhile unequal relationships among ethno-national groups in the country. While it has devised these solutions to tackle problems, the new political arrangement displays many loose ends as regards the protection of human rights, be that of individuals or minorities. This article is an attempt to highlight some of the outstanding human rights problems the new political arrangement fails to deal with. I. INTRODUCTION Both federalism and legal pluralism are mechanisms of promoting respect for self-rule of culturally distinct interests in multi-ethic or multi-cultural societies. The old assumption of a ‘nation state’ and uniform laws for all members of a political community has proved to be defective and unsuitable particularly for societies with diversity. Conversely, federalism and legal pluralism provide for governance solutions for most of the political communities in the world today. But at the same time, one should be careful not to assume that everything in the package of federalism and legal pluralism would perfectly take care of everything in the polity to which they apply. There are byproducts of federalism and legal pluralism that adversely affect the rights of individuals and groups in a given polity unless a concerted and genuine legal and policy environment is created and such are even-handedly implemented. This article aims at explaining the problems and challenges of the application of federalism and legal pluralism in Ethiopia.