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IBA finds rule-of-law implementation gap

A survey carried out by the International Bar Association (IBA) among lawyers in 64 countries has found significant concerns about ‘backsliding’ on the rule of law. 

The survey of 326 legal professionals working across a range of sectors identified significant concerns about access to justice and judicial independence. 

The rule of law backsliding survey report examines the state of the rule of law and the role of the legal profession in preventing its backsliding.  

Decline 

The lawyers’ body says that its findings come as the state of the rule of law continues to deteriorate globally, citing figures from the World Justice Project 2025 Rule of Law Index showing a decline in the rule of law in 68% of counties between 2024 and 2025. 

The IBA survey asked lawyers to assess the importance of key rule-of-law principles on a scale of one to ten. 

Respondents gave mean importance scores of between 9.2 and 9.7 but awarded their countries implementation scores of only between 6.2 and 6.8. 

Threats to judicial independence 

While 83% of respondents considered access to justice before independent and impartial courts to be ‘extremely important’, only 43% considered it to be well implemented in their jurisdiction. 

While 54% of lawyers agreed or strongly agreed that there was no inappropriate or unwarranted interference in the judicial process, 67% identified governmental actors as a threat to judicial independence, while 83% identified political parties as a threat. 

The IBA says that the findings also demonstrate a tension between confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary and individual experiences of bias. 

While 75% of respondents agreed that their judiciary was impartial overall, 48% reported having personally witnessed or encountered judicial bias. 

The survey included responses from 24 member states of the Council of Europe – including Ireland and Britain. 

Recommendations 

Tahera Mandviwala, a member of the IBA’s advisory board on the rule of law, said that the most dangerous threat to the rule of law was not always its outright rejection, but “the gradual normalisation of its compromise”. 

"The gap identified by legal professionals around the world between what the rule of law requires and how those requirements are being implemented in practice should be a matter of serious concern,” she added.  

The report includes a series of recommendations for the legal profession, including: 

• Strengthening the monitoring of and response to emerging rule-of-law threats, 
• Advocating for the integration of rule-of-law considerations into policy and law-making, 
• Fostering a shared understanding of the principles of the rule of law – including judicial independence, impartiality, accountability, and integrity, and 
• Building stronger partnerships with civil society and other key stakeholders.