They Have Failed Again! Donor-driven Promotion of the Rule of Law in Serbia

Abstract

This article deals with recent externally-driven judicial reforms in Serbia. It examines the impact of international donors (e.g. European Union, Council of Europe, USAID) and their domestic reform partners on the development of the rule of law in two key dimensions: judicial capacity and judicial impartiality. The article argues that, although external and domestic stakeholders have been crucial in prompting change in the legal framework and, in part, also in judicial capacity, they were largely unsuccessful in changing aspects of judicial impartiality. This uneven development, together with a politicized, uncoordinated and incoherent reform approach, has undermined the creation of the de facto rule of law in Serbia. Methodologically, the article makes use of a detailed case-study method with process tracing. Data are drawn from a number of primary sources (interviews with international experts, Council of Europe and EU representatives) and secondary sources.