6 - Sub-national Evidence I: The Rule of Law and Its Discontents in Liberia

Summary

Beyond rehabilitating state institutions at the national level, UN missions also attempt to legitimize the role those institutions will ultimately play as purveyors of security and justice in the eyes of citizens at the local level. How successful is the UN's approach to restoring relations between citizens and weak and war-torn states? This chapter begins to answer this question through an in-depth, mixed methods case study of Liberia. The chapter traces the trajectory of the rule of law in Liberia from the country's founding to the present, focusing in particular on the ongoing contest between the police and courts on the one hand and chiefs, elders, and other local leaders on the other. This contest continued to evolve during fourteen years of civil war, which culminated in the deployment of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) in 2003. UNMIL faced daunting challenges to the rule of law at the start of its mandate, and adopted a variety of strategies to overcome them. The chapter draws on a combination of secondary sources and original primary interviews conducted with dozens of Liberian citizens and local leaders, as well as with government and UN personnel.