Whereas the language of contemporary rule of law promotion is new, its form – the active mobilisation of law across borders for economic and political ends – is not. Among the many precedents for the enactment of legal interventions abroad undertaken (at least nominally) to benefit the host country, one obvious and immediate precursor to contemporary rule of law reform is late colonialism.

The colonial encounter illuminates contemporary rule of law promotion for two reasons. First, interventions from that time laid the foundations for much current rule of law reform. While this is true in much of the world, the African context is especially illustrative since the foundations were laid relatively late, distilling previous lessons and introducing political and legal structures in a comparatively systematic and thorough fashion. Today's reformers thus work with materials – the basic administrative apparatus of the state – largely constructed by and inherited from the colonial authorities. Second, the techniques and practices associated with contemporary rule of law endeavours share many family resemblances with the colonial era. This is not to say that modern rule of law reform simply or simplistically repeats or continues colonial legal transplantations. To the contrary, very much has changed. The rule of law vocabulary is itself, as I shall suggest in Part II below, adopted in part precisely to highlight discontinuities (some very real, others rather more aspirational) with the colonial past.