Mike, you are quite right. We Americans, particularly lawyers I think, become jaded toward other forms of law, especially civil law as opposed to common. However, our main ethnocentrism revolves around social or cultural adaptions of law. We seem to think that if its works for us, it'll work for others forgetting that folks have been doing this for thousands of years.

While I do believe their are certain fundamental rights that exist irrespective of culture, i.e. natural rights (existential rights?) that exist just from the fact that we exist (still working through my thought process on this one), the fact is that most law will turn on societal norms and cultural influence. In trying to enforce our own ideals of justice, we ignore this aspect of legal system creation and hamper our efforts to create a working system. I think we should focus on the big picture and worry about some of this stuff later.

Another aspect of the formal legal system lost on some in relation to rural folks, is the historical trend of desiring limited government. These folks want government to leave them alone. Security is all they really desire from the government and governmental imposition of a "foreign" legal system in lieu of their traditional methods is viewed as undesirable. We have to integrate the traditional system into the formal system and use it as a basis for "selling" the formal system to the locals. This is a generational effort though and American impatience isn't helping.