Donor-Instigated Justice Reforms: Achievements, Shortcomings, and the Road Ahead

This article reviews post-1980s reform programs introduced by donors to improve the performance of justice systems in developing and transitional countries. Based on examples taken from donor programs in LAC and CEE countries, it is developed in three parts: 1) a brief explanation of the reforms’ objectives, methods and achievements, 2) a discussion of their shortcomings and their causes; and 3) an explanation of how and why the more successful program graduates found themselves confronting the still-unresolved challenges facing judiciaries everywhere. Along with much foreign assistance, justice programs are in definite decline, but they suffered criticism for years before this happened. Nonetheless, in their initial years, they had a lasting, positive effect on the judiciaries they touched as well as providing lessons worth retaining on the limits of the models informing their efforts.