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Starting six years ago, a global rule of law recession has rippled and raged through communities around the world. Authoritarian trends compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic have eroded government accountability, rolled back human rights, and delayed justice in dozens of countries.   By 2021, the United States was among the countries with the sharpest deterioration in the rule of law. Declines in U.S. rule of law performance were roughly on par with those in Myanmar, Nicaragua, and the Philippines.   Then last fall, the U.S. score on the annual World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index rose for the first time since 2016. The country’s gains across all eight factors that the Index measures made it one of the world’s biggest rule of law improvers in 2022. Suddenly, it seemed imaginable that the United States could bounce back, although there was still a hill to climb. 

When InReach, a US-based, trans-led tech nonprofit increasing resource access for the diverse LGBTQ+ community was selected as the winner of the World Justice Challenge Data for Justice Prize last year, the organization had just announced a rebranding to position its free technology as a resource for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers as well as the broader LGBTQ+ community. Since then, the need for InReach has only increased in the United States.

Globally, 1.4 billion people have unmet civil justice needs and fall within the justice gap. Now, the World Justice Project has broken the justice gap down into country-level estimates and analysis for 104 countries in the just released WJP Justice Data Graphical Report Part I.  

This past quarter the World Justice Project (WJP) released a series of reports providing more in-depth, country-level, and subnational rule of law data than ever before. Government reformers and communities are embracing our data and the innovations of local champions we have identified in a variety of exciting ways around the world.    

Controversy is already swirling around Guatemala’s upcoming presidential election, even before the ballots are cast on June 25.

One year later, join the World Justice Project for a webinar series to hear from these Challenge winners how their work has advanced, the most pressing priorities they currently face, and how they are continuing to take action for the rule of law. 

Last week, the United States Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of charging a former U.S. president with federal crimes.  While some condemned the June 8 indictment of Donald Trump as a violation of the rule of law, others hailed it as a necessary vindication of the rule of law principle that no one is above the law.

On June 8, WJP and Mexico’s National Bar Association of Corporate Lawyers hosted more than 100 policymakers, civil society leaders, journalists, businesspeople and researchers to discuss findings from the new 2022-23 Mexico States Index, including several notable trends—both positive and negative. 

The American Bar Association’s International Law Section recently convened a panel to discuss the global impact of U.S. Democracy under fire as part of its annual “Rule of Law Webathon.” World Justice Project Executive Director Elizabeth Andersen joined the Hon. Andre M. Davis, U.S. Circuit Judge (ret.), U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Cass R. Sunstein, professor at Harvard Law School, and Scott Carlson, associate executive director of global programs for the American Bar Association in a robust discussion about how lawyers can help prevent further backsliding of democracy.  The panel was moderated by the Hon. Delissa A. Ridgway of the U.S. Court of International Trade. 

WJP Executive Director Elizabeth Andersen recently addressed the American Bar Association’s “Putting People first: People-Centered Justice at Home and Abroad” conference in Washington DC. Andersen used her remarks to define the unmet justice needs experienced by billions around the world and explain how people-centered justice can bridge the justice gap. 

WASHINGTON, 17 de mayo de 2023 - La mayoría de la población de América Latina y el Caribe consideran que su gobierno utiliza la desinformación para moldear la opinión pública a su favor.  Este es sólo un indicio del autoritarismo y de la desconfianza generalizada en los gobiernos de la región, según se desprende de 26 nuevos reportes nacionales sobre el Estado de Derecho publicados hoy por el World Justice Project (WJP).  "Estos reportes representan las voces de las personas en toda América Latina y el Caribe y en cómo perciben y experimentan el Estado de Derecho", dijo Elizabeth Andersen, Directora Ejecutiva del WJP.  "Estamos más contentos que nunca de compartir más datos de nuestras encuestas para ayudar a las diversas partes interesadas a identificar las debilidades del Estado de derecho y desarrollar políticas para hacerles frente." 

WASHINGTON May 17, 2023 – The majority of people in Latin America and the Caribbean believe their government is using misinformation to shape public opinion in their favor.  That’s just one indication of authoritarianism and widespread mistrust of government in the region, as captured in 26 new Rule of Law country reports released today by the World Justice Project (WJP).   “These reports represent the voices of the people across Latin America and the Caribbean and how they perceive and experience the rule of law,” said WJP Executive Director Elizabeth Andersen.  “We are excited to share more of our survey data than ever before, to help diverse stakeholders pinpoint rule of law weaknesses and develop policies to address them.” 

WASHINGTON May 9, 2023 – About a third of people in the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), on average, would like to migrate internationally according to new research from the World Justice Project.  Hondurans express the strongest desire to migrate, with 44% saying they would like to leave the country.  The proportion of people wishing to migrate has dropped in all three countries since 2021, although the percentage of people who already have a plan to migrate has stayed relatively stable, at an average of about 10%. The new data comes from a series of nationally representative household polls conducted in the three countries within the last year, updating an earlier 2021 study.  

WASHINGTON April 20, 2023 – A majority of people in the Caribbean believe public officials are corrupt, according to findings from the World Justice Project’s Corruption in the Caribbean report. Drawing on nationally representative surveys, the report represents the voices of people in 14 Caribbean countries and their experiences and perceptions of corruption in both the public and private sectors. 

Billions of people around the world have unmet justice needs ranging from serious legal issues to more common issues like money and debt problems. For many, justice can be slow, or even non-existent due to lack of access or affordability of the civil and criminal justice systems.  In Cambodia, Colombia, and Kenya, legal aid and empowerment programs are taking innovative approaches to reach people who need their services most.    WJP recently convened the World Justice Challenge Network to focus on high-impact grassroots efforts to build people-centered justice. It is one way the organization continues to deliver on its goal to advance locally led rule of law solutions. 

Mexico undertook historic criminal justice reform in 2008. But one critical player was left behind: the police. Now, amidst the country’s continued impunity crisis, the World Justice Project is working with local authorities to make up for lost time.

When it comes to resolving problems big and small, access to justice remains elusive for two-thirds of humanity. But new momentum for people-centered justice could change that. At the second Summit for Democracy, a broad coalition of countries and civil society organizations called for a global renewal of a core pillar of democracy–the rule of law. The best way to do so, they said in a joint statement, is to rebuild citizen trust by embracing people-centered justice. More than 5 billion people are caught up in a massive global justice gap, according to research by the World Justice Project (WJP). That includes over 4 billion people who can’t access basic protections the law allows, and 1.5 billion people who cannot solve their legal problems–whether criminal, civil, or administrative–through the justice system.

Discrimination is widespread and getting worse around the world, according to World Justice Project data.  The latest edition of the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index—the world’s leading, independent source of rule of law data—finds that 70% of countries have seen discrimination worsen between 2021 and 2022. Since 2015, discrimination has increased in three-fourths of countries that WJP studied.