ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author aims to design an ongoing research strategy to gather data on customary law patterns of different tribes, analyzes the data, identify problem areas, and help create draft legislation designed to alleviate problems. He conducts extensive bibliographical research and identified hundreds of sources on customary law in Papua New Guinea. Upon independence, national leaders adopted the Australian legal system then in force as an interim national legal system. This Western legal system often clashed with the customary law of tribal peoples within the new nation. A basic corpus of customary law cases has been created for use in developing the underlying law of Papua New Guinea. Customary compensation, particularly homicide compensation, was identified as another specific problem area. Homicide compensation appeared to be an area in which social development had outstripped the ability of small-scale customary legal systems to adapt.
