WORLD BANK

Legal and Judicial Reform: Observations, Experiences, and Approach of the Legal Vice Presidency (2002)

This work describes supremacy of law and justice in economic development and poverty control; the sphere of court and legal reform that World Bank is involved into; methodology of the Bank in approaches towards legal and judicial reform; coordination of activities within the legal sector and the framework of an organization.

Legal and Judicial Reform: Strategic Directions (2002)

The following publication is an addendum to the work Legal and judicial reform : observations, experiences, and approach of the Legal Vice Presidency (2002). The document contains descriptions of various approaches towards legal and judiciary reform; experience acquired with implementation of legal and judiciary reform; actions needed for conducting legal and judiciary reforms.

Initiatives for Implementing Legal and Judicial Reforms (2004)

World Bank in this material presents its experience in implemenation of legal and judicial reform, studies tools of reforms and shares information on projects that aim at implementation of legal and judicial reform.

The World Bank Legal Review. Law and Justice for Development. Volume 1 (2003)

This material is devoted to the question of right and justice for development: legal education; knowledge received from the previous experiences; main aspects of legal developments and results of recent research conducted in all the mentioned spheres.

Judicial System in the Period of Economic Transition. Review of the Past and Perspectives for the Future

The present work examines experience of the Central- and Eastern European countries with transitional type of economy, their attempts to reform legal and judicial institutions of their countries in order to meet needs of market economy. This research provides links to various sources of information – including Research on conditions of entrepreneurship and results of enterprises’ work  conducted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) together with the World Bank, Judicial reform index by American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI), Study of legal indexes by EBRD, databases of the World Bank Entrepreneurship, An Overview of World values, Reports on global competitiveness by World Economic Forum and researches New democratic countries, New barometer of Russia conducted by Strathclyde University. All these are gathered to measure specific characteristics of legal systems of different countries with transitional economy, to see how these systems have evolved over the past years and to make conclusions in order to provide conditions for implementation of reforms. 

Court Performance around the World

Сomparative analysis of situations in different countries is an efective tool for valuating effectivenes of implementation efforts and influence of judicial reform, lessons learned and transmittion of comparative experience for a valuation approach towards legal and juducial reforms, evaluation of efficiency of various reform models. Research by Dr. Dakolias is gatehring materials of the last 2 years’ work that has been focusing on granting materials that describe court activities. Such description is the first step towards development of reform valuation methods and their influence on the sphere of court management.

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION CENTRAL EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN LAW INITIATIVE (ABA/CEELI)

Judicial Reform Index (JRI) is a tool developed by American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI). The aim of this mechanism is to evaluate structural factors that are of importance for conducting a judicial reform in the countries of developing democaracy. During the period when legal and court systems are attracting more attention than before, JRI seems to be an important valuation tool. JRI will help States that are on the way to a democratic type of development to improve the quality of planning judicial reform programs and track the progress of creating an effective and independent judicial system.

EUROPEAN BANK FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT

Work of EBRD on legal reform

One of the programs of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has  lately has been involved into the process of a legal reform in some of the areas of commercial and financial law. This examines various situation in the legal reform area, gives examples of the Bank’s work as an input towards a legal transition process and prepares a basis for key change countries in transition period will go through on the way to reforms and economy development.

PUBLICATIONS

Reforming Legal Systems in Developing and Transition Countries. By Sheryl W. Gray

A weak legal system can become an obstacle on the way of developing a modern market economy. What are the relationships between the legal reform and economical reform, what specific steps can be made by countries in order to support reform developers – these are the questions an author raises within his article.