Title: Theatre of the rule of law : transnational legal intervention in theory and practice /
Authors: Humphreys, Stephen.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 2010
Subjects: Rule of law.; Rule of law Political aspects.; Rule of law Economic aspects.; International economic relations
Abstract: "Theatre of the Rule of Law presents the first sustained critique of global rule of law promotion - the drive to shape laws and institutions that pervades international development and post-conflict reconstruction today. While successful in articulating and disseminating a comparable set of ideas about law and policy, this expansive global enterprise has largely failed in its stated goals of alleviating poverty and strengthening 'fragile states'. Moreover, in its execution, the field deviates sharply from 'rule of law' principles as commonly conceived. To explain this, Stephen Humphreys examines the history of the rule of law as a term of art and a spectrum of today's interventions, as well as earlier examples of legal export to other ends. Rule of law promotion, he suggests, is best understood as a a kind of theatre, the staging of a morality tale about the good life, intended for edification and emulation, but blind to its own internal contradictions"--
Contents: pt. I. Parameters : 'rule of law' as a term of art -- Society -- Economy -- Sovereignty -- Precursors : colonial legal intervention -- pt. II. Theatre of the Rule of Law -- Market -- State -- Public.