Mounting Pressures on the Rule of Law: Governability for Development and Democracy in Latin America, By JacquelineBehrend and LaurenceWhitehead (eds.), London: Routledge, 2025. xii + 305 pp. $152 (hardback), ISBN: 978‐1‐032‐79354‐2

Introduction Over the last ten or so years, the rule of law has experienced a marked rise in popularity. As many have observed, after the end of the Cold War and by the middle of the 1990s the rule of law was being advanced by all kinds of strange bedfellows as a panacea for the world’s ills – from Russia to China, from Rwanda to Bosnia, its implementation was seen as a ‘rising imperative of the era of globalisation’. And although widespread faith in its international dimension seems to have diminished somewhat since the inauguration of the ‘war on terror’, the embrace of the rule of law by the development institutions and associated aid machinery has, if anything, tightened rather than slackened. Around the end of the 1980s the World Bank in particular, as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), began to take an interest in ‘governance’ and institutions – including law generally – and their role in the promotion of development. Not long after this already significant shift, the rule of law was directly invoked for the first time as both cause and result of development in the 1997 issue of the World Development Report, the Bank’s flagship publication. Many causes have been given for the rising surge of interest in the relationship between law and development within the aid and development community. These include ‘the post-Glasnost developments in Central and Eastern Europe, … the post Brady Plan revitalization of Latin American economies’, as well as the near collapse of many sub-Saharan African states. However, although these factors are relevant, they are symptomatic rather than causative of the re-emergence of ‘rule of law’ talk, and the belief in (yet) another ‘new world order’ in the aftermath of the Cold War. That governance and the ‘rule of law’ were offered as solutions to the developmental and economic ‘crises’ of the 1990s was neither axiomatic nor inevitable, but depended first upon a more complex and pluralistic re-emergence of the importance of law in the aftermath of the Cold War. The story of that re-emergence and its ongoing consequences is the third and final telling instance of the dual quality of international law being explored in this book.

The article explores the effects of populist polarization in creating strong and long-lasting institutions based on the rule of law. It focuses on politics and not on the political economy of populism or of natural resource extraction. The first section briefly explains how we understand the contested notions of populism and the rule of law. The second focuses on the paradigmatic case of Juan Peron's first two administrations (1946-1956) to explore the ambiguous legacies of populist inclusion for the creation of long-lasting demo-cratic institutions. The third section focuses on how Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa appealed to the un-bounded will of the people to convene participatory constituent assemblies. The last section focuses on Ecuador's post-populist succession. Different from Evo Morales that was ousted by a coup, or Nicolas Maduro that killed democracy, Lenin Moreno, who was Correa's former vice-president, abandoned populism, ditched his mentor, and used a referendum to clean the state and political institutions from Correa's allies. Appealing to the people directly, his administration assumed exceptional powers to name new authorities of control and accountability. His institutional reforms however might not last because they were based on the exclusion of Correa and his followers. The conclusion explores the reasons why actors continue to use laws instrumentally making it difficult to create long-lasting institutional arrangements based on the rule of law, and hence on the possibility of deepening democracy.

Chile and Argentina are neighbors in the Southern Cone of Latin America, yet their experiences with the rule of law are worlds apart. Although the two nations share the Spanish colonial legacy and the civil law tradition and they both recently underwent transitions from harsh military rule, they have been on opposite ends of the judicial autonomy continuum for most of their histories. Chile has had more success than Argentina in establishing a strong rule of law that includes a judiciary that is independent of the executive branch. In a rule of law system, state agents and private actors that wield significant power are subject to legality. Otherwise, these actors can use their power to violate the formal rules of the game. An autonomous judiciary on its own is not sufficient to ensure the rule of law, but it can aid in the establishment by binding powerful actors. In the context of Latin American ultrapresidentialism, the judiciary must have the capacity to act as a control on the executive branch.

Abstract. The evolution of electoral competence in Latin America is addressed, which has implied a progressive generation of electoral institutions with a constitutional nature, reflected in the creation of autonomous institutions, which underlines the importance of evaluating whether this progress has strengthened the rule of law in the region. The relationship between the advancement of the rule of law and the implementation of electoral competence is manifested in various institutions. It is from judicial to autonomous, for which analysis is carried out to better understand the similarities and differences between the political systems of the region, also related to the legislative systems and executive systems for a better understanding of this discernment. The methodology used combines a historical and comparative approach, using regressive diachrony, progressive diachrony and comparative systems analysis to provide a more complete understanding of how electoral competence interacts with institutions and how it relates to the rule of law. The results suggest a relationship between the rule of law and electoral competence, although they do not imply direct causality, offering clues for future research and highlighting the importance of the rule of law in strengthening electoral competence in Latin America.

This chapter explores the connections between the different paths of transitional justice in Latin America and the rule of law and judicial reform processes that have taken place in much of the region over the past two decades. For the most part, transitional justice experiences and rule of law reform have been studied as parallel and separate processes, with some recent exceptions (Collins, 2008; Skaar, 2010). However, transitional justice in many ways presupposes minimum rule of law standards, and advances in the rule of law involve precisely a greater commitment to addressing issues of legal accountability for those in positions of political power. The chapter, then, explores the connections between these two processes, looking at how past and present accountability are related to the state’s capacity to deliver minimal rule of law standards, and how this has evolved in Latin America in recent times. To the extent that justice sector reform has improved the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms, what is the impact that this has had on transitional justice processes as these have evolved’ Where the different actors promoting transitional justice seek to go beyond the establishment of truth commissions and achieve some level of judicial accountability, this requires that courts be minimally receptive to cases dealing with human rights abuses committed in the past and that they be minimally credible and capable of guaranteeing a measure of due process. In turn, developments in transitional justice can have an impact on how members of the judicial system re-position themselves over time with regard to cases of human rights crimes.

After decades of neglect, interest in the nature and consequences of the rule of law has revived in recent years. In the United States, the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore has triggered renewed interest in the nature of the rule of law in the Anglo-American tradition. Meanwhile, economists have increasingly come to realize the importance of political and legal institutions, especially the presence of the rule of law, in providing the foundation of freedom and prosperity in developing countries. The emerging economies of Eastern Europe and the developing world in Latin America and Africa have thus sought guidance on how to grow the rule of law in these parts of the world that traditionally have lacked its blessings. This essay summarizes the philosophical and historical foundations of the rule of law, why Bush v. Gore can be understood as a validation of the rule of law, and explores the consequences of the presence or absence of the rule of law in developing countries.

DAVID MARSHALL, THE INTERNATIONAL RULE OF LAW MOVEMENT: A CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY AND THE WAY FORWARD, CAMBRIDGE, MA, HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRAM, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL, 2014. An article from journal Revue québécoise de droit international / Quebec Journal of International Law / Revista quebequense de derecho internacional (Volume 27, Number 2, 2014, pp. 1-218), on Érudit.

Preface - Richard E. D. Schwartz Introduction - Richard E. D. Schwartz Part I. The Rule of Law: What Is It? Democracy and Equality - Robert Post Reflecting on the Rule of Law - Samuel Donnelly Do Free Markets Create Free Societies? - Samuel Krislov Part II. Case Studies A. Moves Toward Democracy Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? - James Gibson The Federal Constitutional Court: Guardian of German Democracy - Donald Kommers Religion, Constitutional Courts in Former Communist Countries - James Richardson B. Transitions and Problem Cases Transitions to Constitutional Democracies - Inga Markovits Sudan: A Nation in Turbulent Search of Itself - Francis Deng Expecting the Unexpected: Cultural Components of Arab Governance - Lawrence Rosen Rule of Law and Lawyers in Latin America - Rogelio Perez-Perdomo Law and Development: Is China as Problem Case? - Randall Peerenboom Part III. International Processes Toward a Rule of Law: Freedom of Expression - Kurt Wimmer Divided Nations: The Paradox of National Protection - Francis Deng Views on the Ground: The Local Perceptions of International Criminal Tribunals - Donna Arzt Global Rule of Law or Global Rule of Law Enforcement? International Police Cooperation and Counterterrorism - Mathieu Deflem Environmental Protection, Free Trade, and Democracy - David Driesen Global Business, Oversight Without Inhibiting Enterprise - John Philip Jones Revisiting Good Governance - Ved P. Nanda Afterword - Richard Schwartz

Preface Introduction Part I. The Informal Politics of Executive-Legislative Relations 1. Accommodating Informal Institutions and Chilean Democracy 2. How Informal Electoral Institutions Shape the Brazilian Legislative Arena 3. Crafting Legislative Ghost Coalitions in Ecuador: Informal Institutions and Economic Reform in an Unlikely Case Part II. Informal Institutions and Electoral Politics 4. Informal Institutions When Formal Contracting Is Prohibited: Campaign Finance in Brazil 5. The Difficult Road from Caudillismo to Democracy: The Impact of Clientelism in Honduras 6. Do Informal Rules Make Democracy Work? Accounting for Accountability in Argentina Part III. Informal Institutions and Party Politics 7. The Birth and Transformation of the Dedazo in Mexico 8. Election Insurance and Coalition Survival: Formal and Informal Institutions in Chile 9. Informal Institutions and Party Organization in Latin America Part IV. Informal Judicial Institutions and The Rule of Law 10. The Rule of (Non)Law: Prosecuting Police Killings in Brazil and Argentina 11. Mexico's Postelectoral Concertacasiones: The Rise and Demise of a Substitutive Informal Institution 12. Dispensing Justice at the Margins of Formality: The Informal Rule of Law in Latin America Conclusion Afterword: On Informal institutions, Once Again Notes References

Introduction 1. Democracy and the Rule of Law: A Theoretical Framework 2. The (un) Rule of Law in Latin America: A Weak Arena of Democratic Consolidation 3. Judicial Reforms in Latin America: Towards More Independent, Efficient and Impartial Judiciaries in the Region 4. Assessing Judicial Independence in Latin America during the 1990's 5. The Judiciary's Capacity to Check the Executive in Latin America during the 1990s 6. The Judiciary's Capacity to Bring the Military to Account in Latin America 7. Judicial Systems' Ability to Protect Human Rights in the New Democracies of Latin America 8. Corruption, Inefficiency and Violence in Latin American Court Systems 9. Conclusions

A TROJAN HORSE BEHIND CHINESE WALLS? PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF U.S.-SPONSORED 'RULE OF LAW' REFORM PROJECTS IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Matthew C. Stephenson* INTRODUCTION Consider the following scenario. Members of the American governmental, academic, and nonprofit communities notice that, in an important region of the developing world, legal institutions and substantive law appear inadequate. Laws seem opaque, un- predictable, and unfair. Legal institutions are inefficient, inacces- sible to ordinary people, and subject to corruption and political interference. These legal deficiencies, it is believed, threaten sus- tained and equitable economic development, the protection of individual rights, and the possibility for greater democratic politi- cal reform. Thus, it seems logical to these American observers that the United States, with its sophisticated laws and legal insti- tutions, and its years of experience developing a legal system, could provide useful expertise and assistance in promoting legal reform and development in this region. The region in question is Latin America (and to a lesser ex- tent Africa and Southeast Asia), and the time is the mid-1960s. Efforts to provide U.S. legal assistance in these countries - ef- forts which came to be known collectively as the Law and Devel- opment Movement - began with great optimism. 1 Yet the movement came to a virtual halt only a decade later, after a crisis of disillusionment not only with the specific projects, but with the whole vision of legal development which sustained them. * Ph.D. Candidate, Harvard University Department of Government. Special thanks to William Alford, Richard Messick, Katharina Pistor, Matthew Price, Frederick Schauer, and my interviewees for their comments on and contribu- tions to this article. All errors are, of course, entirely my own. 1. For the classic statement of the project's vision and spirit, see William 0. Douglas, Lawyers of the Peace Corps, 48 A.B.A.J. 909-913 (1962).

Constitutional Courts as Mediators: Armed Conflict, Civil-Military Relations, and the Rule of Law in Latin America. By Julio Rios-Figueroa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016.Comparative constitutional law is a vibrant field of study, especially in Latin America. The confluence of democratization and major economic reforms following the demise of authoritarian regimes (in the 1980s and early 1990s) generated a nearly consensual belief that the 1990s were an era of great hopes regarding civil liberties, political stability, and wealth distribution in the region.Almost three decades later, it seems that such optimistic prediction was not entirely fulfilled. Even if a wave of constitutional changes inscribed transformative socioeconomic rights in many countries' legal orders (the Latin American constitutionalism of Colombia 1991, Venezuela 1999, Ecuador 2008, and Bolivia 2009), political stability, and economic growth remained somewhat fragile.The recurrent crises of presidential systems and an unprecedented flood of impeachments swept Latin America in the 1990s: in just over a decade, six presidents faced and impeachment process and four of them were removed from office (Perez-Linan 2007). The frequent and widespread mobilization of the impeachment mechanism challenged many of the dominant views among political scientists, reopening important questions in the literature about Latin American democracies, both on structure and functioning.The new institutional balance that is perceived in Latin America involves the understanding of the role of an important political and strategic actor: Constitutional Courts. Performing an increasingly active position in several of the most politically sensitive national issues, the courts emerge as neutral and reliable instances aimed to protect democratic regimes. For this reason, traditional framings and the mere reproduction of the common sense about judiciary competences are becoming outdated.What lessons can be drawn from these experiences? Do these phenomena corroborate the narratives that emphasize the institutional fragility of Latin American democracies? Despite the discussion around its causes, what does political fragmentation and constitutional changes imply for practical functioning of institutions?Rios-Figueroa departs from this context to create a bold and compelling perspective on the structure, democratic position and strategic behavior of Courts. Combining a stimulating narrative and both qualitative and quantitative methods, Constitutional Courts as Mediators articulates a strong thesis about the role played by constitutional courts as democratic mediators, particularly in dealing with often tense civil-military relations. Focusing on how the accessibility to constitutional justice conditions the production of mediator-like jurisprudence, Rios-Figueroa demonstrates an impressive command of a range of complex content: conflict resolution, judicial politics, and comparative constitutional law.Rios-Figueroa argues that to the extent that constitutional courts are (1) highly accessible, (2) have ample powers of judicial review, and (3) are independent, they are more likely to obtain and credibly transmit relevant information, in a way that helps them address the underlying informational causes of their conflict (24). …

The article analyzes the relationship between compliance with the rule of law and inflation. Annual data for the period of 2013—2019 of the Rule of Law Index from the non-governmental organization World Justice Project (WJP) for 40 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and Latin America were used. By means of cross-section estimates and panel data using a random effects model (RE), the dependence of inflation on individual WJP sub-indices was empirically estimated, taking into account a wide analytical spectrum of different aspects of the rule of law. Recently, the issue of the rule of law is increasingly used in economic research. First of all, it concerns the dependence of transaction funds and trust on legal factors, which has a direct impact on the funds of production and inflation, as emphasized by the representatives of the new institutional school (New Institutional Economics). Instead, Neoclassical economics economists mainly analyze the influence of the rule of law mechanisms on the formation of trust in such institutions as the independent central bank or the state administrative apparatus. There is no lack of empirical evidence that the anti-inflationary influence of the central bank significantly depends on the concomitant conditions of compliance with the rule of law. Keynesian economics experts state that the importance of legal and regulatory norms increases significantly with a low interest rate (Zero Lower Bound — ZLB), which has been the case recently in most industrialized countries. Since the academic interpretation of the rule of law is quite broad, it is of practical interest to study the relevant macroeconomic effects in terms of such individual components as the system of counterbalances and checks for government, the fight against corruption, maintenance of law and order, efficiency of regulatory mechanisms, etc. The study showed that there is no reason to deny the anti-inflationary impact of the rule of law in general and in terms of individual components, but the obtained empirical estimates may be vulnerable to data aggregation and differ in terms of individual groups of countries. If we use the general index of the rule of law of the WJP, the anti-inflationary effect can be traced both for the general sample of 40 countries, and separately for both subgroups of countries: 1) Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union, 2) Asia and Latin America. The use of WJP sub-indices shows an anti-inflationary effect for the general sample of countries and subgroups of CEE countries and the former Soviet Union (with a few exceptions), but the corresponding effect is completely lost for the countries of Asia and Latin America (it can mean that only complex simultaneous introduction of all components of the rule of law is anti-inflationary). This feature draws attention to the possibility of erroneous use of panel data estimates for large groups of countries that may not meet certain regional characteristics and incline to erroneous recommendations for economic policy. Among other results, weak signs of accelerating inflation have been observed over time in the CEE countries and the former Soviet Union, but not in Asia and Latin America. Also in these countries, inflation does not depend on GDP dynamics. In contrast, in the CEE and former Soviet Union countries, on average, each percentage point of GDP growth (lag per year) is marked by a 0.3-percentage-point decrease in inflation.

In a variety of issue-areas in global governance, hybrid solutions have been experi-mented with in order to address the dilemma created by the export of Western tem-plates of good governance, democracy, the rule of law, etc. to non-Western contexts. The latest manifestation of this global trend towards hybridity are hybrid anti-im-punity commissions which have begun to proliferate in Latin America, and which are likely to produce ripple-effects beyond the continent. Their prototype, the Co-mision Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG), was deployed in Guatemala; later, variants of CICIG were created in Honduras, El Salvador, and Ecuador. However, the new hybrids remain largely underresearched. This contribu-tion therefore discusses the state of art and outlines a research agenda on these new hybrid commissions, arguing that, on the one hand, the effects of these mechanisms require further scrutiny – how do hybrid anti-impunity commissions shape a variety of possible outcomes including the rule of law, statehood, sovereignty, democracy, and the like? On the other hand, we should investigate the factors that contribute to the establishment, successes, and failures of these hybrids, thus treating them as outcomes to be explained.

In the transitional justice literature it is often assumed that transitional justice mechanisms, such as trials, improve the rule of law, as well as strengthen democracy and human rights protections. Although there is a lively debate on the causal relationship between transitional justice mechanisms, and democracy and human rights, we still know little about the relationship between transitional justice and rule of law. But what is it about rule of law that makes accountability mechanisms more likely? If judicial reform aims to strengthen the rule of law, how does it relate to accountability mechanisms? Departing from an institutional- and process-oriented view of rule of law, in this paper I engage with some of these questions. The paper aims to provide a preliminary exploration on the theoretical links between judicial reform, domestic legal norms and institutions, and efforts for prosecuting human rights violations, through an empirical comparative analysis on Latin America.