Judicial corruption linked to human rights
Comparing Human Rights Index vs. Electoral Democracy Index with Judicial Corruption Score across 173 countries, 1948–2025.
- Rank correlation
- +0.70
- Holding size constant
- +0.59
- Countries compared
- 173
- Period
- 1948–2025
What might link these
The relationship between judicial corruption and human rights might be influenced by the overall level of democratic governance in a country, with more democratic countries potentially having both less corruption and better human rights records. A careful reader should be cautious about assuming causation and consider the potential impact of other factors such as economic development or cultural norms. A likely confounder could be the level of electoral democracy, which might influence both judicial corruption and human rights.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. This correlation could mislead by implying a direct causal link between judicial corruption and human rights, when in fact the relationship may be driven by underlying factors such as democratic governance.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.