What We Know and Don’t Know About the Rule of Law

The inaugural conference of the Rule of Law Research Consortium (RLRC) was held on October 31-November 1, 2014, at the University of Chicago Law School. In former professor Barack Obama's favorite lecture hall, over 30 leading researchers from around the world came together to consider the state of the art on the rule of law, integrating theoretical and practical perspectives.

Each of the principal conference speakers presented recent or forthcoming work. The meeting was organized around three main themes: conceptual issues around the concept of the rule of law; efforts to measure the rule of law—including the new World Justice Project Index—and empirical work that uses the measures; and practical issues related to rule of law implementation, including the relationship of theory to practice. The panel listing below links to individual pages with streaming audio of the discussions available for download:

Panel Discussions

Panel I: Concept & General Issues

Panel II: The Rule of Law and its Antinomies

Panel III: Issues in Measurement and Rule of Law

Panel IV: Implementing Rule of Law in Practice

Panel V: Empirical Applications

Panel VI: Empricial Applications II