CIAO DATE: 10/05

Legalism Sans Frontières?: U.S. Rule-of-Law Aid in the Arab World

Abstract

THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE IN RULE-OF-LAW PROMOTION, above all the basic question of whether Western rule-of-law aid programs are on the right track to help build the rule of law in recipient countries, is especially acute in the Arab world. Arab states generally share two features that render external rule-of-law aid particularly diffcult-long-standing nondemocratic governments, and legal systems that graft Ottoman, European, and contemporary sources onto Islamic norms. We cannot presume that U.S. common-law practitioners can build the rule of law by transporting or transplanting their technocratic techniques into such different legal soil. Indeed, the very idea that people in Arab societies would be receptive to American guidance in legal reform is dubious in the current climate of broad, popular mistrust of the United States.

Thus, expectations must be low for the prospects for U.S. law specialists to improve the rule of law for Arabs. Nonetheless, the desire of many Arabs for more predictable, responsive, and fair laws is indisputable, a desire that is growing as pressure for liberalizing political change in the region mounts. The 2004 Arab Human Development Report is only the latest and most prominent statement by Arabs of the central importance of the rule of law to social improvement. Moreover, although U.S. rule-of-law aid to Arab countries during the last decade was a rather modest endeavor, receiving little backing from senior U.S. offcials, rule-of-law reform is now a subject of much greater attention and funding, as part of the George W. Bush administration's broader push for democratic change in the region. Therefore, this is a propitious time to examine how the United States can work to enhance the rule of law in ways that are useful to Arabs.

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