Peace Without Justice: Obstacles to Building the Rule of Law in El Salvador (review)

International financial institutions (The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Inter-American Development Bank) and development organizations (the United Nations Development Program), as well as governments (the United States and European nations) have funneled millions of dollars into justice reform programs in Latin America. United Nations and foreign consultants have provided advice and oversight to many such justice reform projects. The majority of Latin American countries are still receiving significant aid for judicial reform. Several factors have motivated this widespread international commitment to judicial reform in Latin America. These include the desire to improve the stability of transitioning democracies, to promote economic development and foreign investment, and to further the government donor's own foreign policy.

The assessment of the success of these judicial reform efforts in Latin America varies widely, depending on who is polled. For example, agencies leading the justice reform projects, like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in attempting to secure grants that continue justice reform projects in Latin America, insist that their programs are "on track" and have contributed to the consolidation of Latin America's democratic institutions. ¹ In contrast, several scholars and Latin American experts, while recognizing some successes, have criticized the motivations, the methodologies, and the effectiveness of such internationally sponsored justice reform projects in Latin America. ²

Popkin is one of these critical scholars who provides a detailed account of the significant international involvement in the justice reform efforts in El Salvador and an insightful analysis of what went wrong. ³ Popkin opens her account with the lament that, the Salvadoran justice system, almost a decade after the signing of historic Salvadoran peace accords, is incapable of delivering justice for past and present crimes, even as a frustrated Salvadoran public experiences crime in epic proportions and a growing acceptance of vigilantism. Popkin's message to international donors and institutions is not one of reproach or despair, however. Rather, Popkin intends that her book provoke a substantive reevaluation of the role of international actors and spark a stronger commitment to justice reforms in El Salvador and in other developing countries.

Popkin draws on her extensive research and experience to provide an exacting chronological examination of the United Nations and USAID judicial reform efforts during El Salvador's peace negotiation process and subsequent years. Popkin examines these efforts within the structure of El Salvador's legal system as well as the domestic political and social context. In doing so, she unveils the complex nature of efforts to promote judicial reform in El Salvador by intimately acquainting the reader with such factors as the subtlety of interpersonal dynamics and the depths of the socio-cultural impediments to reform. As background for the latter, Popkin includes a historical narrative, as early as the 1960s, of El Salvador's painful legacy of human rights abuses and of selective justice that survives today. In addition, Popkin provides a comprehensive narrative of El Salvador's peace process, drawing useful comparisons to Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Haiti. For this reason, Popkin's contributions are multifaceted and her work should appeal to students of various disciplines, including historians, political scientists, sociologists, and legal scholars, in addition to international donors and institutions involved in justice reform projects. I follow a summary of the book with some general observations on Popkin's contributions and some brief reflections on the continuing challenges to justice reforms in Latin America in the context of globalization.

I. Summary

Popkin's analysis shows that justice reforms in El Salvador have been painfully slow and difficult to achieve due to several contributing factors. These include El Salvador's legal culture of corruption and ineptitude, its past and present societal ills of war, economic disparity and crime, the weaknesses of its legal institutions and their resistance to reform, a lack of political will, and shortcomings in...