Rule of Law Coalition

The Rule of Law Coalition’s main areas of focus include, but are not limited to:  

• Digital transformation: The Coalition promotes collaborative efforts to support the adoption of digital tools in tax administration, licensing and permitting, and customs, as well as their application in enhancing participatory rulemaking. 
• Anti-corruption and integrity: The Coalition aims to expand the number of corporate champions, business associations, and anti-bribery organizations that align and adopt private sector-led solutions combatting corruption. 
• Combatting illicit trade: The Coalition promotes the adoption of private sector-led solutions to enhance supply chain integrity. 

The objectives of the Rule of Law Coalition are to:

• Vigorously defend the rule of law, sanctity of contracts, and respect for property rights, including intellectual property, and advocate for the quick resolution of related conflicts.
• Foster an understanding of the varying regional realities related to rule of law, ranging from those that impede business and investment, to those undermining national competitiveness, to those posing an outright threat to democratic institutions.
• Promote the negotiation and implementation of vehicles such as trade agreements for the strengthening of government institutions related to rule of law.
• Highlight, where applicable, provisions in existing and pending trade agreements that improve governmental transparency, combat corruption, protect due process, or otherwise enhance the rule of law.
• Help ensure that the benefits of the rule of law and constitutional processes are more broadly shared and understood throughout our societies.

The rule of law is among the most crucial factors in a company’s ability to achieve business profitably in any given market over time.

For a privately owned company whose continued operations are dependent on a return on investment over time, there are several factors related to the rule of law that will determine its ability to make rational investment and operating decisions, and thereby have a reasonable expectation of returning a profit:

1. Transparency – laws and regulations applied to business must be readily accessible and easily understood;
2. Predictability – laws and regulations must be applied in a logical and consistent manner;
3. Stability – the state’s rationale for the regulation of business must be cohesive over time, establishing an institutional consistency across administrations, and free from arbitrary or retrospective amendment;
4. Enforceability/Accountability – investors must be confident that the law will be upheld and applied equally to government as well as private actors;
5. Due​ Process – when disputes inevitably arise, they must be resolved in a fair, transparent, and pre-determined process.

Throughout the world, countries that actively promote and defend the rule of law are fostering an investment climate that supports job creation, economic growth, and shared prosperity.

Since 2013, the Rule of Law Coalition has produced its Global Rule of Law and Business Dashboard, released every two years, in partnership with research firm Pugatch Consilium. The Dashboard offers the business community, governments, policymakers, and stakeholders across the world an innovative, empirical tool to measure and understand the needs of the business community within a rule of law context. Importantly, it demonstrates the state of rule of law in global and regional contexts, and the close relationship between adherence to the rule of law and the ability to attract investment.

The Dashboard has grown from an initial sample of 10 markets in the Americas to now 113 markets globally, measuring governments’ adherence to the five factors that contribute to a strong rule of law and investment climate: transparency, predictability, stability, accountability, and due process. Those five factors provide businesses with confidence in the integrity of public and private institutions to make trade and investment decisions where there is fairness, enforcement, and proper adjudication of the law, and their presence is correlated with increased investment, economic growth, and job creation. The Dashboard provides users with an easy-to-understand yet statistically credible meta-measure of the rule of law environment as it relates to business, relying on information and research contained in seven internationally accepted indices and surveys. As the report has expanded, the results continue to show that rule of law remains a challenge globally. Meanwhile, the private sector remains critical in co-creating solutions to remedy the rule of law and enhance public integrity.