Rule of Law Handbook: A Practitioner’s Guide for Judge Advocates

The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School (TJAGLCS) trains and educates military, civilian, and international personnel in legal and leadership skills; develops doctrine and captures lessons learned; and conducts strategic planning in order to provide trained and ready legal personnel, imbued with the Warrior Ethos, to perform the JAGC mission in support of a Joint and Expeditionary Force. Within TJAGLCS, the Center for Law and Military Operations (CLAMO) specializes in the collection of after action reports (AARs) from Judge Advocates and paralegals recently returned from deployments. There are two constantly re-occurring themes that surface in these AARs. The first is that commanders naturally tum to their legal experts to plan, execute, coordinate, and evaluate rule of law efforts. The second is that no comprehensive resource exists to assist practitioners in fulfilling this task.

It is highly likely the Global War on Terror (GWOT) will require the US military to engage in operations that include rule of law operations as an essential part of the overall mission. The term was mentioned nine times in the 2002 National Security Strategy, and sixteen times in the 2006 National Security Strategy (NSS). As the 2002 NSS explains:

America must stand firmly for the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity: the rule of law; limits on the absolute power of the state; free speech; freedom of worship; equal justice; respect for women; religious and ethnic tolerance; and respect for private property.

While there is little debate over the need for such a practitioner's guide, there is little else in the rule of law arena upon which there is widespread agreement. There are divergent, and often conflicting, views among academics, various USG agencies, US allies and even within the Department of Defense (DOD), as to whether to conduct rule of law operations, what constitutes a rule of law operation, how to conduct a rule of law operation, or even what is meant by the term "rule of law." As in the case of any emerging area of legal practice or military specialty, doctrine is non-existent, official guidance is incomplete, and educational opportunities are limited.

While acknowledging the above challenges, the Judge Advocate General's Corps leadership still recognizes the inevitability that Judge Advocates on the ground under extraordinarily difficult conditions will be called upon to support, and even directly participate in and lead, rule of law operations. The JAG Corps owes these lawyers at the tip of the spear practical guidance in the form of a resource that contains at least the fundamentals of how to establish the rule of law in the context of a US military intervention. That, then, is the genesis, purpose, and rationale for this, The Rule of Law Handbook: A Practitioner's (Guide for Judge Advocates.