International Actors and Rule of Law Reform in the Global South: Lessons from Ethiopia

Join the Human Rights Program at the Harvard Law School for a discussion on, "International Actors and Rule of Law Reform in the Global South: Lessons from Ethiopia". 

In many ways, the two speakers, Abduletif Kedir Idris and Abadir M. Ibrahim, spent their careers answering this question in the affirmative in their human rights advocacy in Ethiopia. After their country embarked on what many saw as a transition to democracy in 2018, they joined a group of about 200 Ethiopians, mostly lawyers and legal academics who formed the Legal and Justice Affairs Advisory Council, to take on the task of overhauling the entire legal system. In their presentation, based on a book manuscript on the reform process, they will contend that while international actors can play a determinative role, the mechanism through which they do so is only tangentially connected with how well democracy, human rights, or rule of law, projects are designed. Emphasizing the need to avoid “mixing spices without a recipe”, they will discuss some generalizable lessons from Ethiopia.

The respondent, Ada Ordor, a leading expert, and educator, in the field of law and development and has studied and written on the application of this field in Africa, as well as in connection with women’s rights and the nonprofit sector.

The discussion will be moderated by Salma Waheedi, Lecturer on Law and Executive Director of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World. 

Learn more HERE. 

Organized by: Human Rights Program and the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World