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| 1 |
ID:
146099
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| Summary/Abstract |
As the European Union (EU) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrate 40 years of bilateral relations, the partnership continues to develop inter alia with the launch of a new Legal Affairs Dialogue, announced during the 17th EU-China summit (June 2015). As Rule of Law approaches greatly differ between the PRC and the EU and contain unbridgeable conceptual gaps, the new Legal Affairs Dialogue might further contribute to changes in the EU’s strategy of external Rule of Law, faced with the PRC’s own narrative and approach to the Rule of Law. On the other hand, the new dialogue might offer room for agreement and convergence on various global, bilateral and domestic levels. Recent domestic adjustments in the PRC and a manifest interest in reforming its legal system at a time when the EU is itself re-thinking its strategy of external rule of law offers a great potential for significant exchanges and an opportunity to bridge the Rule of Law gap between the PRC and the EU.
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| 2 |
ID:
146093
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| 3 |
ID:
146094
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This paper aims to examine the consistency and effectiveness of the EU as a global promoter of values by focusing on the rule of law, one of the key values on which the EU is based and which is also supposed to guide EU’s external action. The paper first offers the diagnosis that the EU has failed to properly address a number of key issues: (i) what the EU seeks to promote under the heading ‘rule of law’, (ii) how it measures and monitors a country’s adherence to this principle and (iii) the disconnect between its external and internal policies and instruments. To address these issues, four key recommendations are made: (i) the adoption of a guidance note, (ii) the development of a transversal measurement and monitoring instrument, (iii) the adoption of a rule of law checklist and (iv) the revision of the role of EU Fundamental Rights Agency, with the view of transforming it into a ‘Copenhagen Commission’ with new powers and a broader geographical remit.
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| 4 |
ID:
146100
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The rule of law and security sector reform have become central to peacebuilding initiatives in the past decade and a half, accompanying a surge in international interventions in the periphery. Considered of critical importance to the re-establishment of order and the promotion of peace and development, these two areas of reform have gained importance and, today, feature as priorities in the European Union’s external action beyond its immediate neighbourhood. Such policies, however, have often failed to achieve their stated goals. After reviewing the theoretical relationship between peacebuilding, rule of law reform and security sector reform, this article draws on the Union’s practice to argue that a narrow, formalistic approach to rule of law and security sector reform, one that prioritises the transplantation of a western liberal legal framework, has undermined the aims of curbing instability and fostering development.
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| 5 |
ID:
146095
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| Summary/Abstract |
The development of a coherent EU Rule of Law external action strategy requires that the Union overcome two “diversity dilemmas” and one “consistency dilemma.” The three dilemmas are interrelated and ought to be approached holistically. The first diversity dilemma pertains to the great divergence in the current uses and understandings of the concept of the Rule of Law. The second emanates from empirical reality, rather than conceptual challenge. In the contemporary global system, the EU faces a broad, possibly widening, set of political regimes which pose distinctly different Rule of Law challenges. A meaningful Rule of Law external action strategy therefore cannot be based on uniformity of conceptualization or policy prescriptions but must contend squarely with a reality of great, and arguably growing, variance. Grappling with diversity while maintaining conceptual and policy coherence represents the third key challenge to the development of a coherent EU Rule of Law external action strategy. Resolving the consistency dilemma necessitates accommodating diversity within a coherent conceptual and policy framework. This, in turn, requires that, in its external action, the EU approach the Rule of Law as a central pillar of a broader, liberal political-development agenda and that it adopts a vertical (rather than the traditional horizontal) understanding of the concept, involving broadly progressive, cumulative, and hierarchical spheres of Rule of Law conditions.
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| 6 |
ID:
146097
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| Summary/Abstract |
A prominent question in the literature on democracy is concerned with the role of external factors in stimulating the process of democratization and uploading rule of law. This paper tackles the following questions: How does the political conditionality of an international organization—the EU in this case—stimulate democracy in third countries? Equally important, does conditionality always have a positive impact and could it be possible to witness the EU undermining democracy in an unexpected manner? This paper addresses these questions through an analysis of the Turkish democracy in the light of its accession to the EU and through an application of the EU membership conditionality by looking at rule of law in Turkey. The general contention in the political conditionality literature is that the EU enables an acceding country to adopt its democratic principles, and facilitates transition to democracy, while strengthening rule of law. However, the Turkish transformation seems to challenge this contention. This paper proposes that the EU’s political conditionality in bringing about political transformation in Turkey as a membership precondition unexpectedly illuminated the underlying anti-democratic tendencies and tensions in Turkish politics. The democratization process in Turkey since 1999, partly stimulated by the EU, has opened up a Pandora’s box releasing the conflict between the secularists and religious conservatives in Turkey that has long been suppressed. This paper analyzes these cleavages through the prism of EU political conditionality with regards to rule of law.
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| 7 |
ID:
146098
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Indonesia is an emerging power, but one problem particular taints the success story: corruption. While corruption affects all public policies, its disastrous effects are most visible in forestry. Indonesia is still home to the third largest rainforests in the world, but the country is losing its forests fast. One main driver of deforestation is illegal logging. The strengthening of the rule of law is therefore a key to stop or at least to slow down Indonesia’s deforestation rate. The European Union has been keen to support the Indonesian government in its fight against illegal logging in accordance with the European Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade Policy (FLEGT). In September 2013, Brussels and Jakarta have signed a FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement (a FELGT-VPA, more commonly known as “Timber Pact”). Under the Timber Pact, Jakarta promises an overhaul of its forest governance. This reform of forest governance is costly to the Indonesian government, in financial and political terms. After all, many actors profited from the old system. The question arises why the Indonesian government agreed to the Timber Pact. In the first part of the analysis, a rationalist perspective is taken to answer this question, focusing on the political and economical gains for the decision-makers. The second part looks at the issue from a constructivist angle and shows how the norm “fight illegal logging” fitted into the normative framework of Indonesian politics. By combining a rationalist and a constructivist perspective, a broad picture of successful EU norm diffusion is painted.
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| 8 |
ID:
146096
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| Summary/Abstract |
The promotion of the “Rule of Law” is a leading ambition of the EU’s external action (Article 21 TEU). The dominant approach in most policy documents is to define the rule of law in terms of legal and institutional checklists. However, several authors have criticized this “anatomical” approach and have argued for a “sociological” approach. In this paper, I will discuss two empirical models of the rule of law. Most current studies follow the model of the “Rule of Law in Action.” This approach is based on Roscoe Pound’s distinction between the “law in the books” and the “law in action.” I will argue that this conventional approach has several shortcomings. I will therefore introduce an alternative model, based on Eugen Ehrlich’s concept of the “living law.” The principal concern of the “Living Rule of Law” model is not the level of social support but rather the social definition of the rule of law. To assess the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, I will apply both models in a case study about rule of law reform in a refugee camp on the Thailand–Burma border. It will be concluded that empirical research is essential to evaluate the EU’s external action. Moreover, empirical studies based on the model of the Living Rule of Law support a legal pluralist approach, which focuses on the user perspective of citizens and which recognizes the contested notion of the rule of law across cultural borders.
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