in his book, "legal pluralism in contemporary ethiopia" (2010), weldemariam, following the tack taken by professor andreas eshete (phd, yale), defends multination federalism in line with the nonideal theory of john rawls under unfavorable conditions. he contends that legal pluralism is an important federalist policy in a pluralist society such as ethiopia. he does so by telling the story of the suppression of the diverse customary and religious laws in the country's recent past as part of the larger history of ethnic homogenization and state centralization. since 1957, customary and religious laws had been alienated from the state legal system by virtue of the great influx of western transplants providing the setting for competition between legal universalism and legal pluralism. in 1995, legal pluralism triumphs over legal universalism, as the 1995 fdre constitution recognizes the validity of customary and religious laws in personal and family matters. he analyzes the salient elements of legal pluralism in ethiopia, argues for redrawing the frontiers of formal legal pluralism in such a manner as to include criminal matters, and points out the challenges. professor andreas eshete described the work as one that "examined ethiopia’s new experiment in federalism with care and fresh insight" professor donald n. levine of the university of chicago gives his testimonial in the following words: "alemayehu’s work has prodded me to think afresh and offers facts, sources, and analyses from which i have learned a good deal. indeed, regarding ethiopia’s regime of ethnic federalism, he has prodded me to change my mind somewhat. that is not a bad litmus test of any scholar." professor levine refers to him as "more of a social scientist-philosopher at heart than a lawyer, albeit an astute legal analyst."