In this paper, I argue that there is a significant juridical root to the problem of authoritarian rule in Malaysia. That root is Hobbism, an authoritarian conception of legal authority as a solution to the problem of political instability. I show its influence by focusing on three pivotal events in Malaysia's legal and political history. The analysis aims to provide a more nuanced picture of the factors that contribute to the problem of authoritarianism in Malaysia and to suggest that these factors are not purely political; they also have a basis in how officials conceive of legal authority. My argument shows that the influence of Hobbism has worked in both ways to produce the problem of authoritarianism in Malaysia. It has subverted well-minded officials from affirming the ideals of democracy and the rule of law while allowing authoritarian politicians to exploit Hobbism to serve their authoritarian aims. I argue that Hobbism is so well entrenched in the legal and political culture that Malaysian law and politics will not easily transition to more meaningfully express a commitment to serve the ideals of democracy and the rule of law.

The articles in this issue were originally presented at a Workshop held in The Hague on 28-29 April 2011. The Workshop was organised by HiiL, Warwick Law School and the Folke Bernadotte Academy (Sweden). Participants included academics and development practitioners who were invited to reflect upon the similarities and differences between rule of law promotion and security sector reform (SSR).

Despite increasing attention by donors to Security Sector Reform (SSR) and Rule of Law development (ROL), results have been mixed. This article explores conditions within recipient states that shape the outcome of these programs. Drawing from literature on state-building, I argue that the development of security and justice institutions reflects relations among political elites and citizens. Concentration of power by ruling elites as a result of a narrow political base or discretionary control over revenue undermines incentives for leaders to accept constraints on executive power. Regimes rooted in broad or fragmented coalitions without easy access to revenue are more likely to accept legal and institutional constraints. The outcome of rule of law development and security sector reform programs is largely determined by donors' impact on these conditions. I illustrate these dynamics in three post-conflict countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste, where donor-funded programs have yielded varying results.

The rule of law has become the common sense of contemporary global politics. In this article I explore whether the earliest recorded deliberations on the rule of law, those found in political debates in Ancient Greece, have any salience for contemporary discussions of the norm. The article briefly maps historical jurisprudential debates about the rule of law in Greece (and Athens especially) to suggest that no sooner were laws developed to shape society so consideration also turned to how the rule of law might be understood and defined. Moreover, the debates in Athens raise a number of issues, linked most clearly to a procedural perception of the rule of law's contours that can be identified (equally) in debates about the norm in the new millennium. The lesson that these debates prompt is that while the rule of law and democracy may be linked, it is not necessary for either to be well developed (approaching current liberal standards) for progressive debates to be engendered about the further development of a just rule of law.

In this article we discuss the integration of international security assistance and rule of law promotion within larger state-building projects. Going beyond the widespread claim that both approaches should be closely linked within overarching security sector reform (SSR) efforts, this article inquires more systematically into their relationship both at a conceptual level and at the level of state-building practices. It argues that the creation of effective security institutions cannot be easily reconciled with programmes that promote mechanisms of legitimate political control as one dimension of the rule of law. Rationales behind security and rule of law support diverge: the former aims to strengthen a state's enforcement capacities, while the latter seeks to restrict them. The case of security and rule of law support to the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank illustrates the tensions that can result. The article shows that in the Palestinian case, selectivity, fragmentation and timing issues have impeded the coherence of international assistance.

The central question of this paper is what kind of reforms are necessary to guarantee that Latin American police forces meet what Bayley calls ‘the democratic criteria’: 1) police are accountable to law, not to government; 2) police protect human rights, including those related to democratic participation; 3) there are constraints on the use of police force that are enforced by institutions external to the police force; 4) the police force's priority is the protection of citizens as individuals and private groups, not the state. The primary focus of this paper is to discuss the types of reforms that ensure that a police force is abiding by the most fundamental principles of the rule of law under a democratic regime. We recognize that in some cases the two problems are so entangled that it is not possible to discuss police reform without addressing effective ways to reduce crime. However, as we argue in the paper, this is not always the case. In many countries it seems possible to separate the two.

In the last decade bottom-up approaches to legal development cooperation have become increasingly popular. Examples are reform ideas and programmes using concepts such as ‘access to justice’ and ‘legal empowerment.’ These approaches share a common concern that legal interventions should benefit the poor, and that their needs and preferences should form the basis for legal reforms. Proponents argue that these approaches are important alternatives to ineffective pre-existing legal reform practices which were based on ‘the rule of law orthodoxy.’ This paper critically discusses the content, context and merits of such bottom-up approaches. It concludes that while these approaches offer advantages, they should not substitute but complement pre-existing legal development cooperation practices and the rule of law paradigm on which they are based. The emergence of these new approaches shows how much legal development cooperation is a field of trends, where doubts about their effectiveness force legal reformers to regularly shift from one paradigm to the next, enthusiastically applauding the seemingly new, while sacrificing the caricaturized old.

Over the last four decades, donor-driven justice reform efforts have largely followed two parallel paradigms: one primarily concerned with promoting development and economic growth, the other centered on state-building and the consolidation of peace in countries emerging from violent conflict. Operationally, however, these models face the same conundrum: they draw on a broad consensus that justice institutions are intrinsically and instrumentally important for development, and yet have a track record demonstrating that much remains to be learned. These paradigms have increasingly converged in recent years, as exemplified in the World Development Report 2011 (on conflict and security), providing a basis for rethinking approaches to justice reform in fragile and conflict-affected states. These approaches are based on an alternative theory of change, a long-term commitment to investing in research to understand the idiosyncrasies of local contexts, and a more nuanced approach to building locally legitimate justice institutions capable of mitigating the societal stresses that feed cycles of conflict.

This article argues for an integrated, political and pragmatic approach to justice and security development as one of the key objectives of effective international support to peace building and state building in conflict-affected and fragile states. Developments since the 1990s suggest that different actors and communities have started to work on the same issues from different angles and with – perceived – different mandates. As a result, important parts of the debate on how to deal with security system reform (SSR), justice reform and the rule of law seem somewhat stuck in conceptual arguments. This article suggests moving away from such debates and instead to focus on what such justice and security engagements are meant to achieve, for whom, and which general approaches are likely to provide most added value. It argues that results require political focus, long-term processes and need to be in tune with local elite interests – whilst pursuing the aim of gradually helping to improve delivery of justice and security as basic services for all, to appropriate local standards. External and domestic objectives require careful balancing, creative compromises and strong incentives. The article also outlines a number of recurrent challenges to effective programming and suggests some ideas for improvement to achieve better results and more value for money.

The recent emphasis placed on anti-corruption laws as means of combatting corruption in low and middle-income countries reflects a great deal of optimism about the ability of law to effect social change. The more general literature on law and development suggests several reasons for skepticism on this front: the risk that legal institutions will be captured by powerful interests; the possibility that law plays only a limited role as a means of social control; and, in the case of transnational law, the limited power, will, knowledge, and legitimacy of foreign actors. This essay examines the extent to which these concerns provide grounds for skepticism about the potential efficacy of anti-corruption law.

This article examines rule of law (ROL) and security sector reform (SSR) linkages in crisis management. In particular, the article looks into why international assistance providers chose to categorize a situation and ensuing response strategy as rule of law or SSR, how this categorization is motivated and explained to international and national partners and stakeholders, and how this categorization affects national laws, institutions and other arrangements in post-conflict and crisis societies. The article is borne out of an observation, based on events in the Arab Spring, that the character of international community responses to rule of law threats and challenges has as a strong focus on security. Rule of law promotion taking place in UN and EU missions has undergone a ‘securitization’ in how reforms are conceived and put into practice, compared with rule of law in development aid and past experiences of rule of law assistance in post-communist transitions.

Perhaps the most significant trend in justice reform efforts in the last decade in fragile states and developing societies has been a growing interest in informal justice systems. This trend is partially in response to the poor track record of interventions aimed at transforming formal justice institutions into well-functioning systems that meet the ideals of Western rule of law. It also reflects an effort to accommodate what is now recognized as an empirical fact – in many societies, informal justice systems are the primary locus of dispute resolution for the vast majority of the population, and therefore cannot be ignored. However, the rhetorical recognition of the importance of informal systems has far outpaced change in strategies or even programming. There are several reasons for this, but the biggest challenge is a normative one. International actors regard the alternative paradigms of justice offered by local communities as desirable only to the extent that they offer accessible and restorative remedies in ways that do not contravene international standards of rule of law and human rights. Here, the recognized advantages tend to be outweighed in the minds of many development actors by the perceived failure of informal systems to comply with these norms – especially when it comes to women's rights.

The dilemma this poses has resulted in two primary approaches. The first assumes that informal systems are inherently and irremediably inconsistent with women's rights and therefore the formal system must be the primary, if not sole, forum for adjudicating disputes involving women. The second approach seeks to engage with informal systems with the aim of transforming them to comply with international standards, while retaining the positive features of accessibility, familiarity and effectiveness. This note note discusses and analyses the limitation of these two approaches. Ultimately, it is argued here, they are flawed.

This note presents an alternative way of problematizing women's access to justice and corresponding ways of addressing the inequality. Rather than focus on selecting, promoting or changing the formal or informal justice system, intervenors need to embrace processes of social change as the means for instituting legal change.

Post-conflict governance poses particular challenges to governments and foreign assistance providers. We focus on the question of how – and whether – the rule of law is reconstituted in the wake of civil conflict. We find evidence that the state of the rule of law prior to and during a conflict substantially predicts the reconstitution of the rule of law post conflict. We further find that foreign intervention has a positive influence on the rule of law post conflict and that wars which end with a truth or settlement are associated with better rule of law post conflict than those resolved through victories by either government or rebel forces.

This article presents a bird's-eye view of two decades of UN rule of law assistance in Africa. The article is based on a dataset developed by the Folke Bernadotte Academy which covers a total of 36 UN peace operations (peacekeeping, political missions and offices).

Implementing comprehensive rule of law strategies is challenging for the UN as a whole, not least where peace operations are deployed. Such operations are deployed in situations where the rule of law is severely tested and where in such environments UN staff perform a number of critical functions, ranging from developing national rule of law plans and strategies, coordinating national and international stakeholders, advising on justice matters and providing technical expertise on specific topics. For the two leading UN entities in relation to post-conflict societies, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of Political Affairs, the translating of rule of law policy into practical programme activities is a daunting task, specifically in terms of providing assistance that is timely, situational and aligned with the national priorities of the host country.

While there have been many positive developments in the UN's rule of law system over the past decade in terms of policy, practical experience and competencies earned on the ground, observations made on the basis of empirical data raise a number of questions critical to the UN's future commitment to rule of law assistance in peacekeeping and peace-building.

The ‘liberal peace agenda’ assumes that security sector reform (SSR) and the consolidation of the rule of law are both interdependent and complementary. Evidence from Colombia and Guatemala suggests, however, that in practice conflict resolution and peace-building strategies may prioritize attaining national security over the rule of law (Colombia) or taking measures to strengthen the rule of law only when faced with serious post-conflict insecurity affecting elites and the hollowing out of the state by organized crime and criminalized elite competitors (Guatemala). Peace-builders should therefore pay particular attention to strengthening justice systems and protecting fundamental rights of citizens and victims of state and non-state violence. Strategies to increase the state's security capacity and to reform the security sector should be synchronized with an overarching rule of law agenda. In violent settings where insecurity has many faces and cuts across the blurred lines between legality and illegality security remains elusive without a stronger rule of law.

Rule of law promotion and security sector reform (SSR) are expected to abide by the same guiding principles. Actors involved in both endeavors are demanded to base their activities on a solid knowledge base. They are urged to take a holistic approach and to ensure that particular components of such an approach are properly coordinated. They are pushed to strive towards local ownership. And, the credibility of external actors is deemed to be of paramount importance. However, there is wide consensus that both rule of law promotion and SSR by and large fail to adhere to these guiding principles. SSR practitioners would thus be ill-advised to rely on applying best practices from rule of law promotion, the older and more established field, to their own endeavor. Rather, both fields ought to step up their efforts to develop practically relevant lessons learned that could then, in turn, be reciprocally useful.

This paper examines the efforts of the European Union to advance Security Sector Reform and to bridge the gap with the Judiciary Sector Reform and the rule of law in the Occupies Palestinian Territories. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the EU engaged actively in the state-building project in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by taking a number of initiatives in situ. Security has been a key issue in all Israeli-Palestinian agreements concluded during the post-1993 Oslo interim period up to 1999 and then, with the resumption of the Palestinian intifada in 2000, security became primordial to all internationally-sponsored diplomatic initiatives and peace plans. The article analyses the EU initiatives undertaken to help the Palestinian Authority reform its security and judiciary sectors, and argues that while the European Union has, in theory, supported the rule of law perspective in Palestinian Security Sector Reform, in reality it has not paid much attention to improving democratic civilian oversight and accountability.

The purpose of this article is to look more deeply at why the principle of local ownership has so often been disregarded in justice reform and security sector reform (SSR). In doing so, it identifies various dilemmas that account for this lack of regard, including issues relating to local vs. international norms; donor vs. local interests and representational issues at the national and local level. Subsequently, it will examine how local ownership dilemmas impact on programming including during the assessment, implementation and monitoring and evaluation stages and then consider how local ownership can be strengthened particularly in fragile states.