3 - Conceptual Framework: Civil War through a Legal Lens

Summary

The rule of law is a necessary condition for sustained peace, good governance, and economic growth. Yet for all its importance as a policy goal, the rule of law as a concept remains widely misunderstood. This chapter develops a conceptual framework for understanding the necessary conditions for the rule of law in countries where the state is just one of many providers of security, justice, and other public goods. The chapter begins by reviewing the most prominent definitions of the rule of law from both policy and scholarly circles. These definitions are grounded in the experiences of rich Western countries, and are generally inappropriate for the developing world, and for post-conflict settings in particular. The chapter then proposes a more unified definition that preserves the attractive features of existing accounts while introducing additional dimensions that better capture the nuances of legality and daily life in countries recovering from civil war.