Rule of law promotion through international organizations and NGOs

Subject Matter

International Organizations and NGOs have since the end of the Cold War increasingly made efforts to promote the rule of law in states. This trend embodies the growing endeavours of international institutions and private actors to impact on formerly internal affairs of states. Efforts to promote the rule of law have, however, as yet not yielded the results many had wished for – also because local stakeholders have often not been sufficiently involved in conceptualizing respective programmes and have objected to reforms. The objective of the project is to trace the evolution of the rule of law promotion efforts of international organizations and NGOs on the basis of instructive examples. It particularly aims at shedding light on the resistance of local actors against external interventions and the way external actors have responded to that resistance. The project forms part of a more comprehensive project that deals with the internationalization of the rule of law more generally and is directed by Michael Zürn, Randall Peerenboom und André Nollkaemper.

Relationship to the research unit’s program

The increased legalization of international relations and the growing depth of interventions of international institutions into societies are associated with the growing trend towards supranationalization (thesis 2).