The conflict which many indigenous peoples experience with Westernized systems of law has precipitated a search for alternative models of criminal justice. While the process of colonization has most often resulted in the destruction of traditional practices of social control, Greenland attempts to combine Western criminal law with the legal norms of the native. The Greenland justice system has several unique attributes which have attracted the attention of indigenous peoples and governments worldwide: (1) It is based on the use of lay people and the indigenous language; (2) Although the system was created by the state, day-to-day operations are left to local authorities in order to promote a policy of decentralization; (3) Local law is initiated and regulated by the state as a means of social control but, unlike those methods used to achieve the same results through the corruption of traditional law, it is based on the interpretation of external legal instruments according to the spirit of indigenous legal thinking. References