is an attorney in New York City and a student of Christian Science. He spent ten days in Afghanistan last May as part of a ten-member executive commission spearheading a project for the restoration of law in Afghanistan. Jointly organized by the American Bar Association and the Center for International Management Education, the project includes 22 teams, totaling 120 lawyers from the United States, Europe, and Egypt, that are addressing the reform of Afghanistan's commercial code (economic laws). Berner headed up the areas of real property and secured transactions. In an interview with the Journal, he described signs of emerging political coherence and human rights.
What is the legal situation in Afghanistan?
There's very little in the way of law over there. We asked one of the judges, "Do you have any laws?" He said, "No, the Taliban burned them for fuel." One problem is that people don't know who owns the property in Afghanistan, because many people who owned the property before 1979 fled, and the Communists came in and they just handed out new deeds to their allies. Then the Taliban came in and handed new deeds to their friends. Over time, people sold their properties to other people. So all of a sudden, you have a country full of properties that three people claim to own. And to make matters worse, all the records have been destroyed, so nobody knows anything for sure.
