How one intergovernmental organisation is helping governments and civil society to spread the rule of law in post-Arab Spring countries
LONDON (TrustLaw) – Irene Khan, director-general of the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), recently spoke to TrustLaw about the group’s mission, and about legal reforms taking place in North Africa and the Middle East after the Arab Spring uprising.
The Rome-based intergovernmental organisation is an international group of lawyers committed to spreading the rule of law in developing countries. It was founded in 1983 by lawyers from the West who had found an imbalance between the capacity of developing countries and developed countries to negotiate contracts.
How does the IDLO work?
We provide what is called technical assistance. What that actually means is doing hands-on work with governments, NGOs, civil society organisations or the legal community. In Kenya, for example, we assisted the government after their electoral violence a few years ago when they undertook to reform their constitution. We were providing advice to the commission that was set up to review their constitution, advising them on reform of the law.
We do a lot of capacity building. Right now we are working with the Tunisian Ministry of Justice. We had a whole series of workshops where the Ministry of Justice can then consult with all the other stakeholders in Tunisian society, the civil society organisations, the trade unions, the bar association and others to develop their future plans for legal reform in Tunisia.
The third way in which we work is by funding research. We did a fascinating project where we did research on the ground into how traditional legal systems work. We ran pilots together with civil society organisations looking at trafficking of girls in India, for example. We recorded all that so that others could learn from it.
Has the Arab Spring changed the IDLO’s priorities?
When we use the term ‘rule of law’ there are many different ways in which people would interpret it depending on where they come (from). For one school of thought, the rule of law is about due process, the fairness of the process; but there is another school of thought that says that actually the rule of law is about substantive justice. Now in the past, we were working in the Arab world in trying to make those processes work well but we were not able to look at the issue of substantive justice because the political systems didn’t allow much space for reform. What has happened since the Arab Spring has been a lot more interest at the political level in addressing those fundamental issues. There has been a great deal of interest, for example, in constitutional reform.
What constraints do you face in expanding your programmes in the Middle East?
They are mostly financial. Generally, there is a lot of talk about the rule of law and it’s very high on the international agenda. While there’s a lot of interest, actually, when it comes to funding, it’s still very difficult because it’s not visible. Humanitarian assistance is very visible, human rights issues are very visible but when you talk about law, it tends to be seen as a technical issue and therefore sidelined.
Does the IDLO promote non-Western legal systems?
In the DNA of this organisation, I think there has been great sensitivity about the plurality of legal systems and we don’t have any particular bias for any type of legal system. We have experts on Sharia law, we have experts on African land rights systems, experts in civil law as well as common law.
Of course that brings challenges because sometimes those legal systems are not up to the mark in terms of international human rights standards. But what we have found is that working with those systems is actually a better way of getting them to reform those aspects that might be in conflict with international standards but allowing them to retain a core of their own system.
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