Tuesday, June 25, 2013
A1.18C (Oudemanhuispoort)
Since 2008, international lawyers have worked in Kosovo with extensive executive powers and the mandate to promote ‘European best practices’ within the EU's largest mission to date, EULEX. The deployment of international prosecutors and judges as well as international legal advisors engaged in law drafting was during the planning of EULEX considered as the most sustainable and legitimate way to rebuild Kosovo’s justice sector. However, the Mission has failed to deliver effectively on its mandate to strengthen the rule of law. The paper explores the everyday practice of diffusion of norms on a micro-level by investigating how three groups of transnational actors (EULEX legal advisors, prosecutors and judges) carrying competing institutional logics construct knowledge on domestic institutional reforms in post-conflict Kosovo. By doing so, the paper identifies the different kinds of knowledge gaps (between practical, professional and local knowledge) as the main source for institutional contestation among EULEX legal actors as well as EULEX and Kosovar legal actors. The paper argues that the way in which the transnational actors construct meaning on the rule of law and European best practices differ largely, and the inherent ambiguity of the abstract concept of the rule of law creates room for contestation. Consequently, the paper argues that contestation between transnational actors is constitutive for the final policy outcomes of the ongoing institutional reforms in Kosovo.
