Judicial reform aid in Guatemala and Ethiopia: A comparative note

Having reviewed Norwegian aid to judicial reform in the contexts of Guatemala and Ethiopia, we will round off with a discussion of the two sets of experiences. As noted when introducing the case studies, Norway’s judicial reform assistance to Guatemala started earlier and has been far bigger in financial terms than the corresponding effort in Ethiopia. Yet, in spite of the shorter history and smaller magnitude of the latter, lessons can surely be learned from both cases.

At the general level, experiences in both countries point to the need for donor coordination. In Guatemala such coordination has functioned relatively well, partly due to its anchorage in one

particular institution. Ethiopia, by contrast, went through a chaotic first phase of support where the lesson was learned, ‘by doing’, that coordination is needed – primarily to foster local ownership and to avoid duplication of efforts. In particular due to the complexity of the field of judicial reform, it was seen as essential that all the stakeholders are on board a comprehensive justice sector programme that is established and managed by the government, in close cooperation with the donor community. The Ethiopian experience suggests that all major donors, including Norway, should support a sector-wide approach – while making sure that the improved donor coordination thus achieved does not undermine local ownership.

The other main common finding across the two cases is that efforts made so far need to be evaluated and understood more in depth, in order to improve the efficiency and results of future projects. Little evaluation has been done, and the repetition of certain kinds of justice reform assistance despite indications that some of the aims of that assistance remain distant, suggest that a more critical approach will be needed to the efforts made so far. Essentially, we need to understand how the interventions can become more efficient in reaching not only the immediate aims (such has reaching a certain number of people with legal aid or training), but also the overall objectives (such as the improvement of the human rights situation, or a more independent judiciary). Also, it is crucial that evaluation reports are made widely available, and acted upon.

These are, however, fairly general lessons from the two case studies. We have, though, suggested that Norway has its particular set of motivations for going into judicial reform – and that Guatemala and Ethiopia clearly exemplify two main, and different, motives. In the Guatemalan case, Norway started supporting judicial reform largely as a result of its engagement in the country’s peace process; whereas in Ethiopia, jud icial reform assistance was first and foremost driven by a wish to support a country in a transition from military rule to democracy. True, Ethiopia also experienced armed conflicts in the early and the late 1990s, but Norway played no major role in resolving those. Preceded by decades of Norwegian presence in the country, Norway’s state engagement in Ethiopia instead started as the country began its road to democracy. The support, which soon turned significant, focused on traditional social and economic development issues. These two divergent reasons for getting involved in justice sector aid clearly gave rise to a divergent choice of channels for the judicial reform assistance. In Guatemala, where Norway had few prior links, it relied almost exclusively on the multilateral channel while in Ethiopia the bilateral channel was chosen, combined with substantial civil society support. How have these divergences, both in channel selection and in the history of Norway’s relations with the two countries, influenced Norwegian experiences in aiding the two justice systems?

At this point, Norway’s experience in Ethiopia appears somewhat too short to conclude on lessons learned – combined with the fact that the interventions made so far have hardly reached the stage of evaluation. However, we do suggest that the advantages of the bilateral approach – the promotion of local ownership and capacity-building – are likely to be achieved also when using the multilateral channel, which has the additional benefit that would likely be crucial for a ‘newcomer’ like Norway, namely the opportunity to learn from other donors’

judicial reform experiences. Does this mean, however, that the use of the multilateral channel is the one and only solution? The Guatemalan experience suggests that the answer is no. Even if significant successes were achieved by using the multilateral channel there, there is evidence that major stumbling blocks prevented rule of law from taking root. For instance, the process was for long seen as too donor-driven, and evidence suggests that the court system, as

a result of the efforts, did not rise in esteem among the local population – rather, in fact, on the contrary.

Therefore, our preliminary conclusion is that there is no ‘one-size- fits-all’ solution with regard to channel selection for judicial reform assistance: Each country will have to find its own way. Donors, however, should take note of that country’s wishes – both at the level of the executive and judiciary branches of government, and at the level of local civil society bodies and research communities – and make sure that their efforts are geared towards responding to those needs in a comprehensive manner.