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EBRD takes law reform message to poorest countries
The 2004 online issue of Law in transition, the EBRD’s legal journal, examines
the legal systems of the seven poorest countries in the CIS and highlights the
need to strengthen the rule of law, particularly by making courts more
politically independent, tackling pervasive corruption and ensuring that good
laws are fully implemented. The journal, targeted at those who make or
influence legal reform policy, uses EBRD surveys of local lawyers to reveal
how political support for sound commercial laws often does not extend to
ensuring that the law is sufficiently accessible and supported by judges and
civil servants.
The journal is being launched on Friday at 10:00 in Georgia at a conference
organised by the ministry of justice of Georgia, whose government has made
commercial law reform a high priority following the Rose Revolution last year.
The EBRD is assisting the country overhaul its bankruptcy laws. Mahesh
Uttamchandani, the EBRD’s specialist in this area, will speak at the seminar
along with Michel Nussbaumer, head of the EBRD’s specialist legal reform team.
Alan Rousso, Senior Political Counsellor, will talk specifically about
corruption.
The new issue of the journal focuses on legal challenges for Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where
more than 50 per cent of the population live in extreme poverty. The issues
facing these countries, while not identical, have important similarities.
However, growth in the domestic markets of all these poor countries has been
limited, access to world export markets remains a challenge and local
infrastructure needs upgrading. Furthermore, good governance, both public and
private, is still a concept in its infancy.
To move forward, these countries need to strengthen their regulatory
environments. Without a strong rule of law, economic growth and poverty
reduction can be neither sustainable nor equitable. To encourage investment
flows, laws and legal institutions must provide an environment more conducive
to business. This requires an effective judiciary and laws that respect
private rights and are enforced.
This issue of LiT covers a range of legal reform issues, from insolvency
reform and small and medium-sized enterprise financing to anti-corruption
measures. It includes a discussion of legal issues encountered in Azerbaijan
and Georgia in connection with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline project.
The edition identifies legal issues which must be tackled to ensure that the
ETC initiative, launched by the EBRD in 2004, meaningfully supports further
economic growth and development.
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