CIAO DATE: 05/2012
November 2011
Center on International Cooperation
As we began the process of drafting this review, citizens across the Middle East and North Africa took to the streets to demand an end to the abusive practices of the security services, more representative and responsive government institutions, the protection of their rights, greater access to economic opportunity, participation in decision-making, and access to justice. They began demanding, in short, the rule of law. The political upheavals in the Arab region are of a different nature to those that have traditionally been the focus of UN peace operations and transition engagements. The end of the Cold War, followed by a broad wave of democratic transitions, contributed to new opportunities for engagement in conflict management and peace support. At the same time, however, long-simmering tensions within many states erupted into mass violence. National conflicts spilled over colonial-era borders to engulf broad regions in Africa, Central America, Southeast Asia and the Balkans. Attention to these internal conflicts, which had hitherto remained on the periphery, became a central focus of the UN in the early 1990s.
Resource link: Shaky Foundations: An Assessment of the UN's Rule Of Law Support Agenda [PDF] - 3.1M