More refugees from a country correlates with weaker rule of law there.
Comparing Rule of Law Index with Refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR by country or territory of origin, gaps filled across 172 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.71
- Holding size constant
- -0.61
- Countries compared
- 172
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
Countries with more refugees needing UNHCR support tend to have lower scores on the Rule of Law Index. This could be because internal conflict, instability, or weak governance (which can contribute to both refugee outflows and a poor rule of law) are present.
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. The relationship might be driven by underlying political instability or conflict within the country of origin, which directly impacts both refugee generation and the rule of law.
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.