« Myth #4: From Crisis to Regulating (or Transparenting instead?) | Main | Let us read a book today »
talking about rule of law…
By Kaufmann | April 17, 2008 No Comments »
I accepted an invitation to be a panelist in the ”National Town Hall Meeting” on the Rule of Law, commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Law Day, which will be held on Wednesday, April 30th, from 4 to 6pm. It is sponsored by the American Bar Association (ABA), in cooperation with the just opened Newseum (at 55 Pennsylvania Ave., in Wash. DC). This interactive public event will be moderated by Pete Williams from NBC News and chaired by William Neukom, ABA’s president. They tell us that the aim is to have a ‘thoughtful and provocative discussion’, covering questions such as:…
· What sustains and what undermines the rule of law? What is the role of media for rule of law?
· Why should we care about rule of law? Are we living up to it?
· Main challenges we face in upholding the rule of law?
· How does the rule of law relate to justice? Democracy?
· What does the rule of law mean to you? To your profession?
Of relevance is the discussion we were having last month on Rule of Law, related to Myth #2 and the article in the Economist. And so is the discussion on definitions, under Myth #3. Any comments (with insights on the above questions, or others) are welcomed. And here you can link to the ABA’s Leon Jaworsky website for further details on this public event.
Time for personal reflection on these issues right now. I am a proud citizen of Chile, one of the emerging economies with relatively low levels of corruption, generally exhibiting good governance and sound rule of law institutions. Yet the Education Minister has just now been impeached by the Parliament, the result of corruption allegations related to mishandling of school subsidies. A ’silver lining’ interpretation would be that corruption can take place anywhere (including in rich countries, of course), so then the real question is whether such corruption is individualized or systemic, and whether a country’s rule of law institutions are resilient enough to address such corruption – or instead impunity prevails. Yet this particular case is complicated by accusations of political motive in the impeachment (BBC story here).
……………………………
PS — An aside, but since it just took place some hours ago, let me share what we saw with my colleagues at work: literally a few feet from my office window the Pope went by, slowly traversing from the White House in his Popemobile… (click here for a couple of unofficial pictures).
Topics: Corruption, Rule of Law, Transparency, Voice and Human Rights | | Read and Submit Comments