The Economist June 11th 2022 61
InternationalJusticeinretreatOverruled
R
ose, a 40-year-oldwoman in Manila,
long beaten up by her husband, finds
her predicament markedly worsen as the
covid19 lockdown leaves him at home
most of the time. A widow in rural Kenya is
driven from her house by her late hus
band’s relatives, who want to claim it for
themselves. An Australian doctor is unable
to return home when the government
makes it a criminal offence for anyone to
enter there from India, where she has been
visiting family. None of the victims feels
she has anywhere to turn. The Philippine
and Kenyan police are not interested. And
there was nowhere to appeal against Aus
tralia’s immigration ban.
In the grand scheme of things these in
cidents aretrivial. But each is enough to
blight a life. It is no consolation to the vic
tims that such random acts of injustice fit a
global trend: respect for the rule of law is in
decline. That is certainly the impression
anyone following current affairs would
have. (In Britain, for example, the prime
minister Boris Johnson’s violation of his
own lockdown rules led to his nearly los
ing a noconfidence vote on June 6th.) The trend is backed by data. Compiled
by the World Justice Project (wjp), a Wash
ingtonbased charity, the Rule of Law in
dex, published annually since 2009 and
now covering 140 countries, draws on tens
of thousands of responses from house
holds, legal practitioners and experts.
It asks about people’s experience of the
justice systems in their countries, and pro
duces scores based on factors such as the
constraints on government power, corrup
tion, regulatory implementation, order
and security, and the enforcement of civil
and criminal law. So it provides a snapshot
of how they are perceived by people in
their daily lives, and how they actually
function. It captures not just outrageous
abuses of power but myriad, tiny injustices
suffered by ordinary people. It is taken se
riously even by governments thatfare bad
ly. India, for example, has declined in the
global table from 62nd out of 113 in 2018 to
79th out of 139 in 2021, and in response its
justice ministry promises reforms.
So it provides evidence about both the
rule of law and people’s access to justice.
Every year an estimated 1bn people encounter a problem that requires recourse
to the law or some informal outside media
tion. Of those, 70% will never see the pro
blem resolved; some 30% will not feel suf
ficiently empowered even to seek a resolu
tion. Of the cases that are resolved, the vast
majority will have been handled outside
the formal state mechanisms of the police,
lawyers, courts and judges. They will have
been resolved instead by local mediation,
perhaps by respected elders.
In each of the four years from 2018 to 21,
more countries recorded declines than im
provements in their rankings. In 2021 the
rule of law was seen to be deteriorating in
74% of countries, home to 85% of the glo
bal population. The lowest overall scores
were in Cambodia, the Democratic Repub
lic of Congo and Venezuela; the biggest de
clines were in Myanmar, after the coup in
February 2021, and Belarus, after the sup
pression of protests against the stolen
presidential election of August 2020. The
few bright spots included Moldova, Mon
golia and Uzbekistan, where under Presi
dentShavkat Mirziyoyev progress has been
made across the index’s components. This
was from a low base (abolishing slave la
bour must have helped).
Three main reasons for this depressing
trend are obvious. A number of nasty, dic
tatorial governments—from Belarus to
Myanmar—have either grabbed power or,
already ruling, have grown nastier and
more dictatorial. And a number of democ
racies—from Brazil to the Philippines—
have been run by populist leaders whoThe pandemic has accelerated a global decline in the rule of law