The project puts impunity to the fore, whose effects are little understood and hardly examined although it is also characteristic for other protracted conflicts in a large number of countries. Eastern Congo (North- and South-Kivu) is a notorious conflict area, involving not only the Congolese army and several regional militias, but also armed groups from neighbouring countries such as Rwanda. The impunity of perpetrators also refers to the weakness of the state (i.e. its institutions such as courts, police, prisons, army), unable or unwilling to impose its monopoly of power. The project, combining law, legal sociology and social anthropology and having a comparative perspective, should contribute to a better understanding of what impunity means to local communities in areas affected by protracted conflict, including, in particular, the functioning and resilience of local and regional forms of informal justice and the contribution of these institutions to the process of re-establishing law and order after an armed conflict. Such understanding is also relevant for the on-going and future efforts of the international community to re-establish the rule of law and ”transitional justice” in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.