Global Justice Index Report 2025

Abstract

Abstract Global Justice Index, whose most results are presented here, is an ongoing, multiyear research project based at the Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences to assess countries’ contributions to and performance in the advancement of global justice. Building on the conceptual framework and measurement methodology that have been developed in previous reports of the project, the Global Justice Index Report 2025 presents the seventh annual assessment, drawing on country-level data for 2023. This report evaluates global justice across ten issue areas: climate change, peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, terrorism and armed conflicts, cross-national criminal governance, refugees, anti-poverty efforts, education, public health, and the protection of women and children. The indicators for these issues are selected and assessed with reference to the principles of the Common but Differentiated and Respective Capabilities and Cosmopolitan but Due-diligent Responsibilities. This report provides country rankings, regional comparisons, thematic analyses, and policy implications for each of the issue areas. To assess uneven data availability, it reports two versions of the Global Justice Index: a nine-issue index that covers 156 countries and excludes anti-poverty, and a 10-issue index that covers 142 countries. Both of these indices are calculated using the equal-weight geometric mean of the scores for their constituent issues. In the results, the United States, China, Germany, Japan, and several European countries occupy the leading positions in both versions of the index. Europe and North America continue to be the strongest performers as regions, and many of the lowest-ranked countries are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the fragile states in Oceania and Asia. The findings highlight persistent regional disparities, the importance of building comprehensive state capacity, and the growing interdependence of different dimensions of global justice in a period that has been marked by armed conflict, climate-related disasters, economic pressures, and geopolitical fragmentation. This report concludes by discussing the policy applications and methodological limitations of the index, as well as identifying directions for improving data quality, measurement, and future global justice research.