On Wednesday, December 6, Larry Diamond, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), delivered the twentieth annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World on “Power, Performance, and Legitimacy: Renewing Global Democratic Momentum” in Washington, D.C.

The Lipset Lecture was inaugurated in 2004 by the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto as an important new forum for discourse on democracy and its progress worldwide. It is also co-sponsored by the Embassy of Canada to the United States.

The lecture was followed by a conversation between Diamond and Democratic Leader of Belarus Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, moderated by NED’s vice president for studies and analysis, Christopher Walker. A recording of both is available below, and the lecture will also be featured in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Democracy.

Does decline in the rule of law bear an economic cost? In a CDDRL seminar series talk, the Center’s Gerhard Casper Fellow in Rule of Law Janka Deli addressed this question. Using European Union (EU) trade data, she challenges the conventional wisdom that deterioration in the rule of law generates decline in economic vitality, on the belief that markets tend to punish states whose conduct violates liberal rule of law norms.

In the past decade, the rule of law has declined among EU member states, with Poland and Hungry embodying this trend. While conventional wisdom assumes that rule of law and economic growth move hand in hand, Deli presented findings betraying this expectation. With the EU as a case study, Deli examines how deteriorations in the rule of law, measured in terms of breaches in international investment agreements, affect bilateral trade.

What happens to the economy when rule of law declines? Deli finds that, on average, rule-of-law-related breaches of investment agreement are associated with a decline in exports due to trade losses suffered by Spain and Italy. In contrast, among newer EU member states, that trend was in the reverse. Decline in the rule of law, evidenced by repeated breaches of investment agreements, was accompanied by an increase in exports.

In making sense of this counterintuitive trend, Deli hypothesizes that norms and expectations surrounding investment agreement breaches vary across “old” and “new” EU states. Put simply; trading partners may be employing higher standards in dealing with investment breaches involving old member states while showing more tolerance to similar violations by new member states.

Deli’s findings challenge the belief that markets’ “invisible hand” will always punish illiberal economic practices and behavior, thereby steering countries toward liberal values and commitments. In the realm of EU trade, the empirical realities suggest otherwise.

A team of Stanford Law students recently submitted a report to the Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor of Moldova outlining procedures and strategies for the country to consider in order to avoid delays in its prosecution of corruption cases.

Erik Jensen, director of SLS’s Rule of Law Program and lecturer, supervised the four-month-long pro bono project, which resulted in Justice Delayed: Countering Dilatory Tactics in Moldova’s Anti-Corruption Prosecutions, an analysis of how other European countries effectively manage defense tactics such as abusive motions, delay tactics, and frivolous requests. Moldova is looking to strengthen existing procedural safeguards against the threat of anti-corruption defendants using sophisticated, concerted delay tactics. The report was delivered to the Chief Prosecutor for Corruption in August 2023.

Read the full article in SLS's Stanford Lawyer.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is pleased to invite applications from pre-doctoral students at the write-up stage and from post-doctoral scholars working in any of the four program areas of democracy, development, evaluating the efficacy of democracy promotion, and rule of law. The application cycle for the 2024-2025 academic year will be open from Tuesday, September 26, 2023, through Friday, December 15, 2023.

Our goal is to provide an intellectually dynamic environment that fosters lively exchange among Center members and helps everyone to do excellent scholarship. Fellows will spend the academic year at Stanford University focusing on research and data analysis as they work to finalize and publish their dissertation research while connecting with resident faculty and research staff at CDDRL.

Pre-doctoral fellows must be enrolled currently in a doctoral program or equivalent through the time of intended residency at Stanford and must be at the dissertation write-up (post course work) phase of their doctoral program. Post-doctoral fellows must have earned their Ph.D. within 3 years of the start of the fellowship, or plan to have successfully defended their Ph.D. dissertations by July 31, 2024.

In addition to our regular call for applications, CDDRL invites applications for the Gerhard Casper Fellow in Rule of Law for 2024-25. Named after Stanford University's ninth president, we welcome research on any aspect of rule of law, including judicial politics, criminal justice, and the politicization of judicial institutions. We are an interdisciplinary center and as such, candidates from any relevant field (i.e. the social sciences, law) are welcome to apply. The Gerhard Casper Fellow will be part of CDDRL’s larger cohort of pre- and postdoctoral fellows. Those interested should apply through the regular CDDRL fellowship application process and indicate that they would like to be considered for the Gerhard Casper Rule of Law Fellowship.