Source: Carnegie
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 21, 2003Contact: Cara Santos Pianesi, 202/939-2211, csantos@ceip.org
International Efforts to Strengthen the Rule of Law Abroad Give Insufficient Attention to Disadvantaged and Civil Society
Carnegie Paper Proposes Paradigm Shift
In attempting to promote the rule of law in developing countries, aid organizations focus too much on state institutions and too little on empowering the poor and civil society, argues Stephen Golub in a new Carnegie Endowment working paper, Beyond the Rule of Law Orthodoxy, the Legal Empowerment Alternative. As practiced by multilateral development banks and other development organizations, rule of law aid efforts concentrate on "top-down" support for government institutions to build business-friendly legal systems that, donors hope, will also promote other goals such as good governance and public safety. Yet, this prevailing approach suffers from questionable assumptions, unproven impact, and insufficient attention to the legal needs of the disadvantaged. As an alternative, Golub puts forth legal empowerment-the use of legal services and related development activities to increase disadvantaged populations' control over their lives. The full working paper, part of the Carnegie Endowment's Rule of Law Series, is available online at www.carnegieendowment.org/democracy.
Legal empowerment is based on community-driven and rights-based development addressing grassroots needs, but it can also have impact on national laws and institutions. It addresses a reality that conventional rule of law programs overlook: in many developing countries, laws benefiting the poor exist on paper but not in practice unless the poor or their allies push for the laws' enforcement. Legal empowerment offers concrete ways to alleviate poverty and advance the rights of all, making the rule of law more of a reality for the disadvantaged. So far, however, legal empowerment efforts mainly consist of diverse civil society initiatives rather than deliberate donor programs. As a result, it is underappreciated and underused.
"The upshot for rule of law development practitioners is that they need to think less like lawyers and more like agents of social change. At the same time, development practitioners in other fields could benefit from thinking more like lawyers and human rights advocates. These changes in perspective will open up vistas for using law to make a greater contribution to development," says Golub. Both groups also should stop assuming that assistance to state institutions yields greater impact and more sustainable outcomes than does support for civil society; in fact, the opposite is often the case.
Stephen Golub is a lecturer in international development and law at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.
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