World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index 2025

The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index examines the integrity of the law in countries around the world. This index evaluates eight factors to define the rule of law and rank examined nations. Countries with the highest scores on the index have systems in place that better ensure justice for citizens and control of government.

What the Rule of Law Index Indicates

The World Justice Project releases its Rule of Law Index annually, and the results on a scale of 0.00 to 1.00 show how well countries maintain the strength of their governments and laws while protecting the rights of citizens and ensuring security.

Individual scores show a snapshot of a country’s performance for a single year. However, changes over time are also important indicators of global and national government operations. For example, in 2022, the World Justice Project found that the rule of law weakened globally for the fifth consecutive year and more countries had a decline in their scores than showed improvement. This change reflected an increase in authoritarian regimes and a drop in the concerns for human rights issues.

Positive changes show improvement in the strength of a country’s rule of law while decreasing scores over time indicate a weakening in the strength of a country’s laws.

Factors Evaluated for the Rule of Law Index

The World Justice Project uses eight main factor categories with 44 indicators within those groups. Rule of Law factors used for the report include maintaining inherent checks on government power, having an open government, lacking corruption, supporting order and security, ensuring basic human rights, enforcing regulations, maintaining civil justice, and upholding criminal justice.

Within these eight factors, the World Justice Project uses 44 subcategories to calculate the total score for the eight factors.

Countries at the Top of the Rule of Law Index

The most recent results for 2023 come from the 2022 Rule of Law Index. Denmark topped the list with an overall score of 0.90. Finishing in a close second was Norway with a score of 0.89. Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands all had scores in third through fifth places on the index.

Nations at the Bottom of the Rule of Law Index

The lowest score in the Rule of Law Index was for Venezuela, which had a total score of 0.26. Other countries at the bottom of the 2022 Rule of Law Index include Cambodia, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Egypt.