ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the promotion of the rule of law in liberal peacebuilding, and offers a critique of what it views as the liberal peacebuilding consensus. By liberal peacebuilding, I mean a set of activities including promotion of free markets, democratization and elections promotion, and other reforms, including promotion of the rule of law, access to justice, and human rights. By liberal peacebuilding consensus, I mean the general view among peacebuilding agencies, donors, states, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that democratic, market, and development processes produce a sustainable solution to conflict. I argue that the ‘liberal peace’ is based on an expectation of a social contract between individuals and their leaders, shaped by human rights and democratic norms. The social contract entails a consensual relationship between the state and its institutions and government, and its peoples, in which the latter defer some of their freedoms in return for resources and security provided by the state. The rule of law is integral to this in supporting the rights of peoples, the capacities of states, and the legitimacy of the social contract amongst both. Liberal peacebuilding actors depend upon state frameworks and their
institutions, taking them to be universal in their aspirations and intent. They assume that the rule of law institutions and processes that shape this relationship between people and their governments utilize universally accepted norms, practices, and neutral institutions (i.e. they presume there is the rule of law rather than a choice among many). Democratic institutions, human rights, institutional development, constitutional reform, legislative assistance, and judicial capacity are presented as central in peacekeeping and peacebuilding mandates and programming documents as is clearly illustrated in the seven current, and many closed, peacekeeping operations in Africa.1
Operations in the Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda offer clear examples of aspects of this approach, supported by actors such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) or the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DfID), as Maguire, Sriram, and Brown’s chapters in this book outline.
