Belize City, Wed. Dec. 8, 2021– The World Justice Project has published its Rule of Law Index for 2021. The index provides scores and rankings for 139 different countries based on constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice and criminal justice. The scores are based on data collected through the national survey of more than 138,000 households and 4,200 legal practitioners and experts, and the project’s most recent findings are indicating that the rule of law is in a continuous state of deterioration. It reported that “more countries declined than improved in overall rule of law performance for the fourth consecutive year. In a year dominated by the global COVID-19 pandemic, 74.2% of surveyed countries experienced declines in rule of law performance, while only 25.8% improved. The 74.2% of countries that experienced declines this year account for 84.7% of the world’s population, or approximately 6.5 billion people”.

Belize received an overall score of 0.48 on a scale on which 1 (strong adherence to the rule of law) is the highest score and 0 (weak adherence to the rule of law) is the lowest. The country’s overall global ranking was 93rd of 139 countries and it received a ranking of 22 among the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The World Justice Project defines the rule of law as a “durable system of laws, institutions, norms and community commitment that delivers on four universal principles, namely: accountability, just law, open government, and accessible and impartial justice”. The WJP reports that “for the second consecutive year, the declines were widespread and seen in all corners of the world. In every region, a majority of countries slipped backward or remained unchanged in their overall rule of law performance.”