FCIL Newsletter / October 1995
Excursion to Kazakhstan
by Kent McKeever
Columbia University Law School Library
Over the last couple of years one of the key US/AID programs
in the old Soviet Union has been the "Rule of Law" (ROL) program.
This is a multipronged program which aims to help strengthen
democratic institutions in the "newly independent states." In
Central Asia the umbrella organization to implement this program
has been the American Legal Consortium (ALC), with the
Washington-based Chemonics, Inc., as the lead contractor. They
have established a field office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to
implement the various parts of the program. This is a central
office to support programs in all of the Central Asian countries,
including Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan, and
Turkmenistan.
The ROL/ALC program has five components. They are
parliamentary support, judicial support, intragovernmental
communications support, assistance in creating non-governmental
organizations, and information resources development. The last
item has been subcontracted to MetaMetrics, Inc., another
Washington-based firm which has specialized in domestic and
foreign public administration improvement projects. They needed a
law librarian to help analyze potential user needs and to help
draft a workplan for what has come to be known as the pilot "Law
and Democracy Resource Center" (LDRC). So for two weeks in June
and July of 1994 I found myself in Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata,
Kazakhstan.
My work involved interviewing law-related workers ranging from
the minister of justice to law students. They all agreed they
needed a lot of help. At the same time it became clear that
whatever was created had to be created by the people of
Kazakhstan, not the United States. This has meant that things are
developing slowly, but once an institution is created, it will
have a more secure base than if it had been plunked down in
Almaty as a U.S. operation.
The main function of the LDRC will be to act as a modern
information center, providing materials and services to support
research in law and the democratic processes. To provide these
services, a local library collection will be developed, access to
the electronic communications systems such as the Internet will
be established, and, in the long run, access to international
online database services will also be established. To run this,
staff will be hired and trained to provide high quality access to
the local collection and to collections throughout the world via
interlibrary loan of photocopied materials. The users are
expected to be a wide range of people, from law students to
judges, and from NGO activists to government officials. Providing
information services is the primary purpose of the LDRC, and the
fulfillment of this purpose will take precedence over any other
function, especially during the startup period.
The library and information services would also act as a base
of support for the various other programs of the Rule of Law
Program. In the first six months of the ROL program, this has
involved programs of election observation, electoral analysis,
judicial education, NGO development and cooperation, and attorney
training and organization. The gathering of materials in support
of future operations of this sort will be much easier once the
LDRC is in place.
The LDRC will be open to everyone. Many US/AID programs other
than the ROL program will also find support for the legal aspects
of their work. Other NGOs will be able to work on the legal parts
of their agendas as well. Many of the local NGOs have as their
objectives the improvement of specific sectors of government
activity. It is also clear that government workers themselves
will be able to find useful materials in the LDRC. The judiciary
will be able to interpret laws with a firmer sense that they are
working within modern norms.
Since the LDRC intends to build comprehensive collections of
U.S. and Kazakhstani statutory materials, commercial lawyers will
also benefit. It will be an important function of the Center's
management to insure that all of these interests are balanced.
Although libraries are often perceived as passive operations,
the LDRC will be structured so as to be able to develop
educational programs in a number of areas relevant to its
functions. These might include legal research, communications
technology for NGOs, modern library techniques (including the
basics of the Internet), and the basics of a modern legal
vocabulary, to assist the translator community. Although the LDRC
may not have the expertise on its own to lead all of these, or
any others which might come up, it will be in a position to
broker minicourses by learning what is needed, and finding who is
able to fulfill that need.
The ALC will supervise coordination of LDRC operations with
other institutions in Almaty and in the oblasts. Primary partners
would include the USIS operations in Almaty, the National
Library, the parliamentary information center, the university
libraries, the libraries at the Adilet Law School, the Judicial
Institute, and any other agencies that maintain collections
related to law and democracy. User coordination will also be
essential, and will be facilitated to a large degree through
representation on the board of directors.
Since my visit, a full-time law librarian, Joseph Luke, has
been hired to help establish the Center. The first one actually
opened in Dushanbe, the capital of Tadjikistan. It is set up as a
unit within the National Library. I will be returning to Almaty
in November to help with a seminar for the Kazakhstanis who would
be interested in developing the center, or in developing similar
libraries for their own institutions or in other cities.
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