Washington, Oct 26 – Adherence to the rule of law in the United States began to recover in 2022 after years of decline during the presidency of Donald Trump (2017-2021), according to the annual index of the rule of law published this Wednesday by the organization World Justice Project (WJP).
“During that period, America’s decline was particularly marked in the area of limits on government power, which fell 16%,” WJP executive director Elizabeth Andersen said during a call with reporters to explain the study’s findings. report.
The expert highlighted that, even with the improvements that she has registered this year, the US continues to be 15% below the levels it registered before 2016 in this field, which mainly measures the responsibility before the law of government actors. .
Despite the fact that the North American country enjoys relatively high levels of adherence to the rule of law compared to other countries, in several of the indicators measured by the WJP it is almost at the bottom of the world, such as in discrimination (position 103 of 140 countries), access to civil justice (115 out of 140) or discrimination in the justice system (121 out of 140).
By comparison, Canada ranks 46th, 68th, and 80th in those three categories, respectively.
“In addition, the United States has persistently low standards when it comes to labor rights and the fairness of the justice system,” Andersen explained.
In the Global Index on Adherence to the Rule of Law, the US ranks 26th out of 140 countries, while Canada ranks 12th.
At the top of the list are nine European countries (Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Estonia and Ireland) and New Zealand.
At the bottom, on the other hand, are Mauritania, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Cameroon, Egypt, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Venezuela.