News

The most recent WJP Rule of Law Index found that the pandemic has exacerbated rising authoritarianism, eroded respect for fundamental rights, and fueled justice delays around the world.  At the upcoming World Justice Forum (May 30–June 3), advocates and experts from civil society, government, and the private sector will convene to plot a constructive path forward.  How can we reinvigorate momentum to reach Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and ensure dignity and justice for all?

The city of The Hague in the Netherlands is home to more than 200 international organizations, including the International Court of Justice. This makes it the ideal setting for the World Justice Forum, the premier international event for advancing rule of law around the globe. The World Justice Forum runs from May 30-June 2, but your experience doesn’t have to start or end there, as it is the anchor event for The Hague Justice Week 2022 running throughout the city.

The United States is facing significant and growing rule of law challenges. Diverse datasets capturing various dimensions of the rule of law reflect mounting concerns about democratic accountability, trust in electoral processes, contested rights of free expression and assembly, and systemic inequities in the U.S. justice system, among other issues, These trends raise questions about the quality of governance in the United States and, given the leadership role of the United States globally, they have implications for respect for the rule of law around the world as well. New data and related advanced analytical and machine learning methodologies hold great promise for improving understanding of these current U.S. rule of law trends and identifying reform needs and opportunities. As part of a new multi-year initiative focused on rule of law in the United States, the World Justice Project (WJP), together with the Wright Center for the Study of Computation and Justice Communities at Dartmouth College and Bright Line Watch, plans a two-day workshop for discussion of works-in-progress generating data insights on contemporary U.S. rule of law issues. The workshop will take place November 11-13, 2022, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Travel stipends will be available to support participation by those selected to present papers at the workshop.

Vladimir Putin’s claims of genocide in Ukraine were more than a fictional basis to rally domestic support for an invasion, according to University of Chicago Professor Tom Ginsburg. They were an example of a growing trend Ginsburg has termed “authoritarian international law.”  We spoke with Ginsburg, the co-chair of the World Justice Project’s research consortium and the author of the 2021 book Democracies and International Law

Around the world, an estimated 5.1 billion people face unmet legal needs. The World Justice Project first revealed the massive scope of this challenge with the release of new household survey data from over 100 countries at the 2019 World Justice Forum. At that same Forum, civil society leaders, policymakers, and donors from around the world dug into solutions and strategies to narrow the justice gap. Many of these efforts continue to bear  fruit, including the United Nations adopting a new access-to-justice indicator to measure progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

In Europe, a long-anticipated showdown over rule of law backsliding in Poland and Hungary reached a critical milestone today. The European Court of Justice rejected the two countries’ objections to a 2020 regulation that allows the European Union to cut some member state funding based on rule of law performance. 

In the first two weeks of its release, the gripping Netflix docuseries Reasonable Doubt: A Tale of Two Kidnappings became one of the most watched shows in Mexico and a trending program in the United States. It follows the nightmarish ordeal of four men who face an ever-morphing series of criminal charges despite a startling lack of evidence and recanted eyewitness testimony. 

  In a year of enormous rule of law challenges around the globe, the World Justice Project sounded the alarm that 85% of the world’s population now live in countries where rule of law is declining. Throughout 2021, WJP worked to track and reverse these trends.

Join us to explore the rule of law dimensions of the pandemic at the Asia Pacific Regional launch of the 2021 WJP Rule of Law Index®.  

On October 14th we launched the 2021 World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index®️, the world’s leading source for original rule of law data.

  The World Justice Project (WJP) convened a private virtual briefing on July 22, 2021, to provide U.S.-based stakeholders from the business and investment community, government, and civil society.