Stimson Logo

Southwest Asia/Gulf Program

Printable PDF Version

May 2003
Rebuilding the Rule of Law in Iraq: Ten Tips from Recent Experience

by William G. O'Neill
Contributing Author

Now that the Bush Administration has embarked on the largest peacekeeping operation and nation-building exercise in over 50 years, administration policymakers who derided such "international social work" need to do some quick learning.   Here are ten tips from recent experience that might flatten the learning curve. 

  1. The military has to do police work.  There is no clear demarcation between military activities and public security in the post-conflict phase.  Even two years after the bombing stopped in Kosovo, NATO troops in a typical day were under fire from insurgent groups, removed landmines- new and old, fought organized criminal gangs smuggling goods and people, and tried to stop grenades and mortars from being launched at minority ethnic enclaves. 
  2. Using the former police in a state as brutal and repressive as Iraq was will not work.  We already see examples of the population refusing to accept the very people involved in all the human rights abuses so thoroughly documented over the years by human rights groups.  Changing the color of their uniforms is not the answer either.  The US tried this in Haiti and the population ran their former oppressors out of town.
  3. Do not dismiss looting and revenge as something "unavoidable" and relatively harmless.  Facile references to retribution from the French revolution to Europe in 1945 reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the danger this violence poses to the entire peacekeeping and state-building enterprise.  Street justice sets a tone of lawlessness, allows criminal networks to form and makes it harder later on to insist on equal treatment before the law, a bedrock principle.  The looting and summary justice carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army after the bombing immensely complicated subsequent efforts to build the rule of law.  The extensive looting and other criminal activity by organized gangs in Iraq were entirely predictable and largely avoidable.
  4. Iraq will need a new police force, comprised largely of new recruits because the old force is so tainted.  Yet it takes time to create a new police force.  Vetting the old police to weed out human rights abusers will require months based on experiences in Bosnia, Haiti and Kosovo, much smaller countries with miniscule police forces compared to Iraq's.  Pressure will build to give the new recruits crash courses and deploy them quickly. Yet most will be rookies requiring oversight by more experienced police. In Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor and Haiti, UN Civilian Police, recruited from a variety of countries, provided such mentoring.  Yet it took months to get these experienced internationals in place and the US has apparently not even started a process to deploy experienced police in any significant numbers in Iraq.
  5. Judicial reform is crucial to the success of the peace operation.  Planners have frequently overlooked rebuilding the judiciary which has undermined police reform and the population's support.  Basic questions like what law applies, especially in post-totalitarian states like Iraq, need to be resolved quickly.  Saddam's reign corrupted and compromised most judges, prosecutors and legal professionals who are seen as part of the rotten structure.  New judges and prosecutors must be recruited, trained and equipped. The pillaging of government ministries, similar to what happened in Rwanda, East Timor and Kosovo, means that the legal professionals will not have the infrastructure needed to do their work.  The US team in Iraq must address restoring the human and physical capacities of the Iraqi judiciary.
  6. Police and judicial reform are not merely technical exercises; modernizing laws, rebuilding courts, enhancing the skills of police and prosecutors are necessary but not sufficient to build the rule of law.   US administrators must reach out to the Iraqi people and take into account their views on what they want from the new police and the courts.  Public information campaigns explaining the public's role in making a democratic police force succeed and in creating an independent judiciary should involve maximum participation by Iraqis.  This public's instinct after more than forty years of repression is to distrust the police and the courts.  Changing this attitude will take time.
  7. The police and courts must earn the population's trust and respect.  Any misbehavior by the police and the courts must be punished swiftly and openly. Nothing will cause the Iraqi population to lose confidence in the state-building effort than if they see the new police and judiciary acting the same way as they did under Saddam.  Creating Inspector Generals' offices that root out malfeasance, corruption and brutality should be a priority.
  8. Don't overlook the prisons.  How a state treats its prisoners is compelling evidence of its respect for human rights.  Many peace operations have ignored prisons because donors shy away- it is not seen as "sexy."  But if the police and courts do their jobs, people will end up in prison and how they are treated is important.  This is especially true in Iraq where prisons often were the sites of the most horrific human rights violations and are so identified in the public's mind.
  9. Dealing with the past matters right now.  Human rights groups and President Bush have denounced the genocide of the Kurds, the ethnic cleansing of the Turkmen in the north and "Marsh Arabs" in the south.  Will an international tribunal like the ones for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda try those responsible? Or will there be a hybrid national-international court as in Sierra Leone? Will Iraq have a Truth Commission or other mechanism that allows people to tell their stories about what happened?  What about reparations funds for the victims?  Failure to secure mass grave sites to preserve evidence for future trials and to allow families a dignified and sure process to identify their loved ones has threatened future prosecutions and efforts to establish the historical record.  How these transitional justice questions are handled affect the chances for establishing the rule of law in the long term.  Experience has shown that the local population is best placed to decide on the right approach.
  10. Be modest, flexible, and patient.  Building the rule of law in places where it has never existed will take at least a generation and cost billions of dollars.  Yet as the High Representative for Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, has said repeatedly, the rule of law is the number one priority.  If the Bush Administration tries to rush the job or do it on the cheap, they are bound to fail and those who suffer will once again be the Iraqi people.

William G. O'Neill is a lawyer specializing in international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law.  He recently chaired a UN Task Force on Developing Rule of Law Strategies in Peace Operations.  He was Senior Advisor on Human Rights in the UN Mission in Kosovo, Chief of the UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda and he directed the Legal Department of the UN/OAS International Civilian Mission in Haiti.  He has worked in Afghanistan and Abkhazia/Georgia for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and conducted an assessment of the OSCE's Human Rights Department in Bosnia-Herzegovina and of the Special Court in Sierra Leone.  He has designed and helped to implement projects to reform the judiciaries, police forces and prison administrations in a variety of post-conflict settings. He has created and delivered training courses on peace operations for military, police, humanitarian and human rights officers from dozens of countries.   He has published widely on rule of law issues, peacekeeping and human rights.