The Rule of Law has gained global appeal and recognition, and is one of the fundamental values upon which the European Union (EU) is based, as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union. In Sect. 1, we briefly consider the main elements of the Rule of Law, in particular those definitions used in the context of the EU, the Council of Europe and the United Nations (UN). Whilst acknowledging that there are national differences among EU Member States, there is broad consensus around the core meaning of the Rule of Law. These definitional issues help frame the discussion that follows on measuring the Rule of Law. In Sect. 2, we outline some general considerations regarding the rationale for measuring the Rule of Law, followed by some specific examples of measurement tools in the context of the Council of Europe (e.g., the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) tools on evaluating the efficiency and quality of European judicial systems, and the Venice Commission Rule of Law Checklist); the EU (e.g., the EU Justice Scoreboard, the Special Eurobarometer on the Rule of Law, and the Rule of Law Report); and the UN (e.g., the Sustainable Development Goals). In Sect. 3, we consider current Rule of Law trends in light of results from a range of datasets (including the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) indices, the Democracy Barometer, the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI), and the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index).

正如《欧盟条约》第二条所规定，法治已获得全球吸引力和认可，是欧盟赖以生存的基本价值观之一。昆虫。 1，我们简要考虑法治的主要要素，特别是在欧盟、欧洲委员会和联合国（UN）背景下使用的定义。尽管承认欧盟成员国之间存在国家差异，但围绕法治的核心含义存在广泛共识。这些定义问题有助于构建随后衡量法治的讨论。昆虫。 2，我们概述了关于衡量法治的基本原理的一些一般性考虑因素，然后是欧洲委员会背景下衡量工具的一些具体示例（例如，欧洲司法效率委员会（CEPEJ）评估法治的工具）欧洲司法系统的效率和质量以及威尼斯委员会法治清单）；欧盟（例如欧盟司法记分牌、欧洲法治特别晴雨表和法治报告）；和联合国（例如可持续发展目标）。昆虫。 3、我们根据一系列数据集（包括民主多样性（V-Dem）指数、民主晴雨表、贝塔斯曼基金会转型指数（BTI）和世界正义项目规则）的结果来考虑当前的法治趋势法律索引）。