Justitie en politie in buitenlandse missies 4 | 10 - HiiL

117SummariesJustitiële verkenningen (Judicial explorations) is published eighttimes a year by the Research and Documentation Centre of theDutch Ministry of Justice in cooperation with Boom Juridischeuitgevers. Each issue focuses on a central theme related to judicialpolicy. The section Summaries contains abstracts of the internationallymost relevant articles of each issue. The central theme ofthis issue (nr. 4, 2010) is Peace missions and capacity building.Rethinking rule of law assistance in Afghanistan; a decade laterV.L. TaylorIn this essay the author looks back at ten years of rule of law foreignassistance in Afghanistan. She first surveys the elements that makeAfghanistan particularly challenging as a development. This is followedby a brief outline of foreign donor-assisted efforts at rule oflaw reform in the last decade. The features of law and legal systemsin Afghanistan that are salient for would-be foreign reformers areanalyzed. The concept of judicial independence serves as exampleof well-intentioned rule of law interventions that have not fared wellin this complex environment. The author argues that better preparedinternational advisors with a better grasp of legal history andcomparative law may have produced stronger outcomes. Ultimately,however, a pre-post-conflict setting constrains conventional rule oflaw programs in important ways and calls for more realism aboutwhat can be achieved, within what time frame and with what degreeof sustainability.Winning the hearts and minds in the Dutch East-IndiesM. BloembergenThis essay is a tentative exercise to compare ideals and practicesof daily colonial policing, in particular in the late colonial state ofthe Dutch East-Indies, to those of present-day international peaceand police development missions in post-conflict societies. In bothcases we see foreign powers, represented by a minority of expertsand professionals, aiming to control (or to assist in controlling) localsecurity problems, out of care and fear; they do so by training indigenousrecruits for professional (civil and military) police forces,build on western models of policing which they presume superior.