Whose Legal Empowerment? Donor Funded legal Aid and Experiential Learning in China

Veronica L. Taylor - School of Regulation, Justice, and Diplomacy - Australian National University
Friday March 4 - 12 Noon - Ballantine 004

This talk presents the results of a three-year project funded by the U.S. State Department in which we delivered Legal Aid funding and training in three impoverished regions in China: rural Hunan, rural Chongqing and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Alongside the project, we surveyed 1,800 households about their attitudes to rule of law and their experiences of family,land, labor and personal injury disputes. This is the most robust evaluation of a rule of law project conducted in China to date. On the basis of these results, we point to some important paradoxes in the way that donor legal assistance is designed and delivered and explain how we changed our project design to better accommodate local conditions.