1st Edition

The Rule of Law in International Development Paradox and Practice

By Michael C. Leach Copyright 2026
244 Pages
by Routledge

244 Pages
by Routledge

This book examines how the concept of the ‘Rule of Law’ has been used in the field of international development over the past three decades. In the early 1990s, the field of international development turned to law as a tool for socio-political transformation and economic reform. Within time, the legal-philosophical notion of the Rule of Law emerged as the primary conceptual frame for that work.... Read more

1.     Introduction

2.     Theoretical, Methodological, and Interpretive Framework

3.     The ‘Transmogrified Duplication’ of the RoL in International Development

4.     The Construction and Fragmentation of RoL’s Meaning and Meaningfulness as Development Policy

5.     RoL’s Conceptual Contingency in Project Design and Reporting

6.     The Promotion of RoL as Meaningful Dynamic Practice

7.     Conclusion

Biography

Dr. Michael C. Leach is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Law and Governance at Tilburg Law School, the Netherlands. He received his PhD (cum laude) from Tilburg Law School in September 2021. Before his PhD, he completed an M. St. in Socio-Legal Research at Oxford University, an LL.M. in Comparative Law at McGill Law School, an LL.B. in Common Law at the University of Ottawa, an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies at the University of Toronto, and a B.A. in History & Political Science, also at the University of Toronto. Between 2008 and 2011, he worked on a number of international development projects in Afghanistan in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Jalalabad, experiences that later became the inspiration for this book. He currently lives and works in Tilburg, where he writes on a range of topics that include the Rule of Law in international development, systems and complexity theory, and climate change and law in the Anthropocene.