FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 27, 2005
Contact: Cara Santos Pianesi, 202/939-2211
Many of the widely acknowledged problems with current efforts to support rule-of-law reform in developing and postcommunist countries arise from a wrong approach to defining the goals. In a new Carnegie Paper, Rachel Kleinfeld Belton argues that practitioners should base their programs on a definition of the rule of law that focuses on the desired ends, rather than proceeding from an imagined ideal of particular institutional forms. The paper, Competing Definitions of the Rule of Law: Implications for Practitioners is available at www.CarnegieEndowment.org/democracy.
Belton considers the different ways that the rule of law can be defined. For the purposes of rule of law promotion programs, she writes, it is best to view the rule of law as a set of inter-related goods: a government bound by law, equality before the law, law and order, predictable and efficient rulings, and human rights. These different ends are likely to meet different types of support or resistance in different countries. By defining the rule of law in this multifaceted, ends-based way, practitioners can better anticipate likely supporters and opponents of reform and avoid unintended negative side effects of their interventions.
Thomas Carothers, director of Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule of Law Project notes, “It is remarkable that twenty years into the current wave of donor efforts to support the rule of law around the world, consensus over the definition of the rule of law is still elusive. Rachel Belton’s new paper is a great step forward in unraveling some of the misunderstandings that have plagued this issue and pointing to a productive way forward.”
Rachel Kleinfeld Belton is the director of the Truman National Security Project and a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton. She has consulted and written on rule of law building strategies for the World Bank and various private organizations, based on fieldwork throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.
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