Rule of law in Oceania

18 countries in Oceania, 2025. Unit: score 0-100. World ranking →

First in the ranking
85.9 /100
New Zealand
Median country
73.7 /100
half above, half below
Range
49.2 to 85.9
Papua New Guinea - New Zealand

How to read it

Across 18 countries in Oceania, the highest value is in New Zealand (85.9 /100) and the lowest in Papua New Guinea (49.2 /100).

The median country is at 73.7 /100: half are above, half below.

Rule of Law (RL) captures perceptions of the extent to which agents respect and follow the rules of society, including contract enforcement, property rights, the police, courts, and the likelihood of crime and violence. Governance score is a linear transformation of the governance estimate using hypothetical worst-case and base-case countries. It is an absolute score ranging from 0-100. Larger values correspond to…

Compare selected countries · on the world map

Source: World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators · licence

Rule of law over time

/100

Ranking of countries

2025
In chart Share of the highest value
1New Zealand85.9
2Australia82.7
3Tuvalu80.9
4American Samoa80.8
5Palau77.9
6Samoa76.1
7Guam74.7
8Federated States of Micronesia74.6
9Marshall Islands74.3
10Kiribati73.0
11Tonga71.4
12French Polynesia69.3
13Vanuatu67.3
14Fiji65.5
15Nauru63.1
16New Caledonia62.9
17Solomon Islands61.6
18Papua New Guinea49.2
World Bank, WGI · 2025 · CC BY 4.0 Source and licence

Tick a country in the table to add it to the chart above, up to six at a time. The ranking uses the latest year for which at least half of the countries have a value; countries without a value that year are not listed.