For the first time ever, Kuwait has featured in the 2023 World Justice Project’s (WJP) Rule of Law index. Kuwait ranked in 52nd spot among 142 countries and jurisdictions assessed by WJP in 2022. Kuwait also ranked second among the nine countries listed in the index from the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA region) with a score of 0.58, on a scale from 0 to 1, where 1 indicated the strongest commitment to the rule of law.
The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait were the only two Gulf Cooperation Council countries to be assessed for this year’s index. The UAE topped the list in the region with a score of 0.64 to rank 37th in the global index for this year.
In a statement released on Kuwait’s inclusion in this year’s index, the Kuwait Anti-Corruption Authority ‘Nazaha’ said that its efforts in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, had enabled Kuwait to be included in the index. The Authority added that the annual listing by WJP aims to support efforts to detect and prevent corruption, in addition to measuring the factors included in the index that have not been previously measured in Kuwait.
This index is the world’s leading source of original and independent data on the rule of law. It relies on more than 149,000 household surveys and 3,400 surveys of legal practitioners and experts, to measure and compare how the rule of law is experienced and perceived at the national level. The index also provides up-to-date and reliable information for policy makers, civil society organizations, academics, citizens, legal professionals and others, it aims to encourage policy reforms, guide program development and inform research to strengthen the rule of law.
The index assesses countries based on eight main factors of: Restrictions on government powers, Absence of corruption, Open government, Fundamental rights, Order and security, Regulatory enforcement, and Civil and criminal justice. The main factors are further divided into 44 sub-factors.