How should international actors contribute to the support of justice and security in fragile states? This paper from the OECD/DAC Network on Conflict, Peace and Development Co-operation analyses the providers, processes and objectives of fragile states’ justice and security services, and reviews lessons learnt by donors in this area. It argues that international actors should take a multi-layered, context-specific approach to fragile states, developing the capacity of the state, but also enabling it to engage with non-state justice and security providers.
Justice and security services aim to provide individuals with equal protection from crime, assure fair resolution of disputes through due process and respect alleged offenders’ human rights. Citizens have a right to justice and security, safeguarded by the state; these “public goods” are preconditions for development.
However, in fragile states, which lack the capacity, legitimacy and/or will to deliver core state functions, justice and security systems can be weakly institutionalised and frequently provided by non-state actors like traditional or religious courts. In these circumstances, international donors should avoid Westernised concepts of state authority and seek to encourage partnerships between state and non-state providers of justice and security.
Justice and security support should strike balances between three axes: short-term achievements versus long-term development; centralisation versus local responsiveness; and human rights accountability versus performance accountability:
- Recruitment and training state justice and security personnel takes time: over-hasty capacity-building can result in an ineffective workforce. Donors should also focus on supporting non-state providers, raising their awareness of human rights and legal process and enabling the state to monitor them. International actors should also aim to coordinate their own activities.
- Developing state service delivery is a convenient way of improving security and justice provision, but governments may lack political will and centralised reform can fail to address local needs. Non-state providers may provide a more legitimate, accessible and locally responsive alternative; mechanisms to link them to the state, like information exchanges and strategic frameworks, should be established. Non-state providers should also be insulated from local elite or party political capture.
- The accountability of state, non-state and international actors is mixed. Within state systems, internal institutional mechanisms targeting human rights and service delivery performance may be more sustainable than external ombudsman offices. Maximising citizens’ participation and knowledge of their legal and human rights may be the most productive means of ensuring accountability and rights recognition.
Donor support should be context-specific: fragile states can be broadly divided into three categories: “deteriorating”, “collapsed” and “improving”:
- In deteriorating states, donors should engage with non-coercive elements of state justice and security provision, like judicial capacity-building and legal training. They should support non-state systems, women’s groups and broad-based human rights organisations.
- In collapsed states, donors should assess the providers, methods and users of justice and security services. They should be realistic about feasible, sustainable goals with the aim of developing an overall strategy, addressing priority security issues to promote public trust, creating “islands of dependability” and subsequently scaling up services.
- In recovering states, donors should promote financially and managerially sustainable justice and security systems. They should work with non-state providers, support transitional justice, integrate justice and security into national development frameworks and develop effective donor coordination mechanisms.
Author: OECD-DAC | Eric Scheye
Source: Scheye, E., and McLean, A., 2006, ‘Enhancing the delivery of justice and security in fragile states’, OECD/DAC Network on Conflict, Peace and Development Co-operation (CPDC)
Size: 54 pages (358 kB)
