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10. The Role of International Actors in Promoting Rule of Law in Uganda
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CHAPTER TEN The Role of International Actors in Promoting Rule of Law in Uganda JOSEPH M. ISANGA INTRODUCTION There is a perception that Uganda, like several African nations held to be beacons of hope in the late 1980s and 1990s, had made a break from bad governance and was headed toward democratization; however rule by men (i.e., the military) rather than by law persists.Yet the rule of law is critical to sustained political and economic development.The lack of respect for the rule of law has adversely affected the emergence of democracy in Uganda. The need for strong, principled, and concerted political leverage by international actors is clear. International insistence on constitutionalism and the rule of law are the keys to Uganda’s democratic transformation. In an increasingly integrated world, characterized by notions of limited sovereignty,1 development assistance is linked to good governance and rule of law. Unfortunately, there are simply too many stakes in global politics, some of them undergirded by self-interest,2 that make this process painfully slow. Nevertheless, it would still be in the interest of international actors to exercise political leverage, which seems to be the only effective antidote to intractable violent conflicts in many African states, including Uganda, whose governments have promulgated progressive constitutions, but have ignored their provisions.3 The slogan is “Trust the bullet, but despise the ballot.” In particular, the Museveni administration in Uganda has encouraged judicial review, but only as a façade to placate the international community. Such 179 180 GLOBALIZING JUSTICE international action, however, would present an alternative that might forestall insurrection and military conflict. Conflict prevention ultimately costs less than international peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and other forms of intervention in the interest of international peace and security, not to mention the high costs of human suffering.4 African conflicts have been caused in part by regimes that do not respect democracy. Uganda is an illustrative case. International actors have played along under an undeclared policy of constructive engagement, but this has essentially served only to delay democratic evolution. As a result, Ugandan leaders have become increasingly autocratic. In such circumstances, reliance on the military and personal rule based on patronage—as opposed to democracy and the rule of law—have become critically important in governance.Yet forceful measures often only beget forceful reactions.The best hope for democracy is for courts to enforce the will of the people as expressed in the laws enacted by their elected representatives. This would depend on both the effective, uncorrupted actions of the legislature5 and an emboldened and independent judiciary. There is still much work to be done in Uganda. At present, the executive turns courts into legitimization instruments for its otherwise undemocratic actions. Real change ultimately will depend upon an enhanced role of international actors and an emboldened and independent judiciary. UGANDA: AN EMERGING DEMOCRACY? Upon its promulgation in 1995 the current Uganda constitution (herein “Constitution”)—the fourth constitution in Uganda’s forty-four years of independence from the British—represented a culmination of a progressive departure from years characterized by draconian laws, absence of judicial review, lack of independent judiciary, gross human rights violations, partisan militaries, and life presidencies.6 It was against that backdrop that by 1994, President Bill Clinton called current Uganda president Yoweri Museveni one of the “new breed,”7 or new generation, of African leaders—the others being Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Issayas Aferwoki of Eritrea, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Bakuli Muluzi of Malawi, Gerry Rawlings of Ghana, and the late Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo—who raised hopes that they would deliver peace, prosperity, good governance, respect for human rights, and the rule of law. Although still struggling, these countries represented emerging democracies in Africa. They represented beacons of hope on a continent that had endured a long plague of bad governance characterized by life presidents, despots, and brutal dictators like Emperor Bokasa of the Central African Republic, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Mobutu of Zaire, Jerry John Rawlings of Ghana, Charles Taylor of Liberia, and Idi Amin of Uganda, to mention only a few. The international community thought it had seen the end of a seemingly intractable governance problem in Africa. Between [54.243.2.41] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:44 GMT) 181 THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL ACTORS 1986 and 1996, Museveni’s efforts at political stability and economic growth were rapid, phenomenal, dramatic, and unprecedented.8 Under his tenure, the...