The Rule of Law Abroad: Learning from Experience and Listening to Locals

Thomas Kirk explores the role of the rule of law abroad in this sweeping review essay. Dealing with the works of Carothers, Armytage, Isser and Kleinfeld, Kirk examines the critiques offered to the traditional rule of law approaches. He concludes that practitioners increasingly have fewer excuses to limit reform programmes to a traditional, narrow focus on formal institutions, the judiciary and lawyers.

Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: in Search of
Knowledge
by Thomas Carothers (ed.). Washington, DC:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006.

Reforming Justice: a Journey to Fairness in South Asia

by Livingston Armytage. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012.

Customary Justice and the Rule of Law in War-torn
Societies
by Deborah Isser (ed.). Washington, DC: US
Institute of Peace, 2011.

Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: the Next Generation
of Reform by Rachel Kleinfeld.
Washington, DC:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012.