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Bogdan, Michael --- "Development Assistance in the Field of Legal Education" [2010] ELECD 423; in Hiscock, Mary; van Caenegem, William (eds), "The Internationalisation of Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: The Internationalisation of Law

Editor(s): Hiscock, Mary; van Caenegem, William

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849801027

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Development Assistance in the Field of Legal Education

Author(s): Bogdan, Michael

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

7. Development assistance in the field
of legal education
Michael Bogdan*

INTRODUCTION

The twentieth anniversary of Bond University coincides with the twentieth
anniversary of the revolutionary events in Eastern Europe, which culmi-
nated with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The effects of these events spread to
those developing countries in Africa and Asia that were under the ideo-
logical and political influence of the Soviet empire. Almost all decided to
follow the Eastern European example, abandon the disastrous socialist
experiments of the past and move towards some kind of market economy
and political liberalization. Such transition required a profound reshap-
ing of the legal systems of the countries in question. Several had for many
years received large-scale development assistance even from some Western
countries such as Sweden, but while they previously asked for food,
medicines, factories, hospitals or roads, they suddenly became interested
in obtaining a new Bankruptcy Act or a law school curriculum. From a
law professor's viewpoint, it is of course very satisfactory that the impor-
tance of law as a precondition for desirable economic and social develop-
ment has become generally recognised, which was not always the case.
Providing development assistance in the legal field has never been quite
uncontroversial. While assisting in the promotion of human rights seems
to be generally accepted, helping the recipient countries to replace their
state-controlled economies with a `capitalist' market economy is consid-
ered by some to amount to helping the rich to get richer and abandoning
...