Pip Nicholson

Japanese Aid in Comparative Perspective

Since the 1990s the promotion of rule of law has been one of the main drivers in international legal development. Multilateral and bilateral donors have adopted it as a stand-alone objective and/or included it as a feature of their good governance, economic development, human rights or democracy agendas. While the definitional debates about rule of law abound,1 to some scholars the ‘degree of apparent international consensus on the value and importance of the rule of law is striking’.2 Indeed, the rule of law concept has been described as ‘analogous to the notion of the Good in the sense that everyone is for it, but have contrasting convictions about what it is’.3 Its perceived importance is certainly reflected in the millions of aid dollars spent every year on development activities aimed at establishing the rule of law in developing countries.4

Japanese Legal Assistance: An East Asian Model of Legal Assistance and Rule of Law?

Japan offers its aid recipients an approach to legal reform that in some ways mirrors, and in others diverges, from the Western approaches to rule of law aid. As a consequence, Japan challenges Western legal assistance generally, and rule of law aid in particular. More particularly, after close scrutiny of the history of Japanese ODA and its mode of legal sector support developed over the last twenty years, we argue that Japanese legal assistance exhibits a range of traits including: in-crementalism; comparativism; different aid personnel; focus on self-help; budget restraint; and humility. This approach has attracted robust critics. Nevertheless, this paper asks the question whether the East Asian model of rule of law assistance challenges the West’s apparent addiction to rule of law aid.