International Laws and Charters: Global Prescriptions for Effective Reform?
Abstract
One of a series of 13 briefs exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the policies advocated in Paul Collier's controversial and influential book 'The Bottom Billion'.
In The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier promotes laws and charters as a cheap and powerful tool to institutionalise development priorities and help the poorest countries, a task framed as a global public good. While the logic is appealing, it has flaws. Laws and charters are commonly either cheap or powerful, yet rarely both at the same time. They can improve governance, but their effectiveness is highly dependent on the politics of implementation. Short of creating purely symbolic 'parchment barriers', these requirements have to be better understood before global prescriptions can bear fruit.
Citation
IDS In Focus Issue 3.10, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, 4 pp
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