International Human Rights Law ♦ Winter 2026

The Forgotten Lawyer: Donor Aid and Rule of Law Efforts in Our Current Political Moment

Jayanth K. Krishnan

The Trump Administration’s unprecedented cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were widely reported as a blow to humanitarian programs covering both food security and healthcare. Less noticed, but equally significant, was the impact on USAID’s extensive justice-sector initiatives that fund courts, train judges, and revise procedural codes in fragile states. The episode underscores how dependent global rule-of-law assistance is on outside funding, and how vulnerable these efforts are when development priorities shift. For decades, aid agencies have promoted these types of projects. Across the Global South, and especially in Anglophone Africa, these approaches have produced quantifiable outputs – but not always legitimacy. Too often, they have ignored a central actor without whom legal institutions cannot thrive: the legal profession. This Article argues that excluding lawyers from externally driven strategies undermines justice systems and weakens states’ ability to meet obligations grounded in international law.