Rule of Law: A Guide for Politicians launched by HiiL

The Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL), a research and advisory institute for the justice sector, has launched a new publication inspired by discussions within the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State and Government in 2008. The discussions came about in response to the threats of global terrorism in recent years and how challenging it can be for governments to implement elements of the rule of law.

The process of preparing the material was initiated and supervised by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University in Sweden, and HiiL in the Netherlands. The first draft of the Guide was written by Dr Ronald Janse, head of the rule of law programme at HiiL. Further work was then performed within the two supervisory Institutes. The material was then reviewed by members of the InterAction Council and representatives of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

It was also discussed in meetings organised by the World Justice Project. In this context readers of the Guide may be interested to see how their country is assessed in the Rule of Law Index referred to at the end. The final review was made by Dr Hans Corell.

A guiding principle in the preparation of the Guide has been that it should be as short as possible so that it could be read by busy politicians at various levels. It should also be useful to other decision-makers and policy-makers and to journalists and others who need to orient themselves in the topic. The Guide should also be easy to translate and publish in different languages.

The Guide is freely downloadable by clicking here.