The Hague Journal on the Rule of Law has recently launched a Special Edition on the Development of the Rule of Law in East Asia.
I have written an article on ‘Asian Legal Transplants and Rule of Law Reform: National Human Rights Commission in Myanmar and Indonesia’, which is available for download here.
The abstract is as follows:
The adoption of public accountability institutions has become a crucial aspect of rule of law projects worldwide. This article focuses on National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) in order to explore the process by which such legal models and ideas are adopted and borrowed from global actors, and the reliance on regional and sub-regional networks. It considers case studies of two NHRI, Indonesia and Myanmar. It examines several possible meanings and sources of ‘Asian legal transplants’, particularly the role of regional networks as sources of legitimacy. It argues that the sub-regional NHRI network in Southeast Asia has evolved as an alternative site of legitimacy, and that the extent to which a NHRI in Southeast Asia may rely on it depends not only on the regime it operates under, but also on the relative position of the NHRI within the regional network.
In related news, the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission has recently launched a website here [note that my article was written before this information was made available].
Melissa Crouch 