The United Arab Emirates was ranked among the leading countries in a global index that measures the rule of law. Moreover, the country is the first on the ranking for the Middle East and North Africa region.
The study is called Rule of Law Index and it was conducted by the World Justice Project. It includes a total of 99 countries from all over the world and it based on various factors like corruption, order and security, crime, access to justice and others. According to the report, the “rule of law” is the foundation that offers equity and chance for communities. Researchers explain that when the rule of law has a weak performance, the consequences for a country might be very negative. Among them are, for example, unequally applied laws, lack of foreign investments, unpunished criminal violence and even gaps in the country’s healthcare system.
The good news is that the UAE is listed at the 27th position on this year’s global ranking, surpassing countries like Italy (29), Greece (32), Brazil (42) and Thailand (47). In addition, the country topped the region ranking for the Middle East and North Africa. According to the index, the United Arab Emirates has registered an impressive performance across several categories. The country’s public institutions were found to be free of corruption. As a result, the UAE ranks 17th in the world in terms of absence of corruption. Also, the report has found that the rate of both violence and crime are lower than the world’s average. Therefore, the country takes the 9th spot in the category Order & Security.
As for the entire Middle East and North Africa region, the report states that most countries set there rank in the top half the index in most of the categories. That was particularly the case with control of corruption and effective regulatory enforcement. The biggest challenge for the region was the poor protection of fundamental rights which is still observed in some parts of MENA.
The worst performers in the region are Egypt and Iran, which are listed at the 74th and 82nd positions, respectively. The performance of both of them on the index marked a huge decline over the last one year.
Rule of Law Index – MENA Ranking:
- United Arab Emirates
- Jordan
- Tunisia
- Lebanon
- Morocco
- Egypt
- Iran
Interestingly, the research examines Western Europe and North America in the same section. That is probably because countries from these two regions dominate the top 30 of the ranking. The top 10 is almost entirely made up of countries located in Western Europe. Denmark leads the way at the first spot, followed by Norway (2), Sweden (3), Finland (4) and the Netherlands (5). As for the North America countries, Canada can be found on the 11th position, while the U.S. resides t the 19th place.
The highest ranked South Asian country is Sri Lanka (48). Uruguay, on the other hand, leads in the region of the Latin American and the Caribbean by landing on the 20th spot. The top performer in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is Georgia which is ranked at the 31st position. In addition, New Zealand is not only heading the region ranking for East Asia and the Pacific, but it is also 6th in the world. As for Sub-Saharan Africa, Botswana has showed the most impressive performance. As a result, it takes the 25th place.
Here is the full list of the top 20 countries on this year’s Global Rule of Law Index:
- Denmark
- Norway
- Sweden
- Finland
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Austria
- Australia
- Germany
- Singapore
- Canada
- Japan
- United Kingdom
- Republic of Korea
- Estonia
- Hong Kong SAR, China
- Belgium
- France
- United States
- Uruguay
- 27. United Arab Emirates
