The WJP Rule of Law Index is an innovative quantitative assessment tool designed by the World Justice Project offering a detailed and comprehensive picture of the extent to which countries adhere to the rule of law in practice. It provides original data regarding a variety of dimensions of the rule of law, enabling the assessment of a nation’s adherence to the rule of law in practice, identify a nation’s strengths and weaknesses in comparison to similarly situated countries, and track changes over time.
The results show that Sweden, contrary to the claims made by suspected rapist Julian Assange and his cohorts and supporters (the Assangeistas), actually is a country that ranks among the highest in the world (often among the Top 3 and always among the Top 10) in all factors and subfactors that are indexed in the report. You can download the full report for 2012 here and there is a cool interactive map here.
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| Criminal Justice |
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| Sweden´s overall scores & rankings |
The reason why the United States has moved down from "green" to "yellow" (it has slipped) is this asseveration from the report:
ReplyDeleteWorld Justice Project – a bipartisan, independent group with honorary chairs including Supreme Court Justices Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsberg and O’Connor – just released a report saying that Americans have less access to justice than most wealthy countries … and many developing nations.
Many prominent Americans, including conservatives (Kennedy and O'Conner) are honorary chairs, this should open some eyes up.
This is just one of the many maps, Eddi, the one on Criminal Justice. If you go to the Interactive map and go through all the 8 factors and even more subfactors you will find that the U.S. rates well in several cases,
DeleteIt is still shocking to me that the United States is not at the top of the list though. It deserves to be.
ReplyDeleteWhy does the United States deserve to be at the top of the list? Because it locks up proportionately more people than any other civilised country? Because proportionately 40 times more people are murdered by firearms than in the UK? Because its politics are dominated by corporate donations? Because, unlike most European Countries, most US States don't permit registration of gay partnerships and the legal benefits that flow from that? Because access to justice (and healthcare) depends on the size of your wallet and not the strength of the individual's needs.
ReplyDeleteThe Scandanavian Countries are rightly at the top of the list. The US is where it deserves to be. Just above China.