U.S. businesses lacked current and comparable data on rule of law conditions critical to operating and investing abroad.

Strong rule of law underpins fair competition, sustainable investment, and economic growth—yet businesses, policymakers, and civil society lack clear, comparable tools to understand how legal and institutional conditions affect markets worldwide. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Coalition for the Rule of Law in Global Markets sought to update its Global Rule of Law for Business Dashboard to answer a core question: how do rule of law conditions that matter most to businesses vary across countries, and how are they changing over time?

This need was driven by major disruptions in global governance data, growing geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty, and heightened demand for evidence-based advocacy linking rule of law performance to real-world commercial risk. The Chamber required a transparent, methodologically sound measurement framework that could restore comparability, expand coverage, and illuminate the specific legal, regulatory, and institutional drivers shaping business outcomes. Beyond its value for businesses, the Dashboard makes governance data more accessible to policymakers and civil society weighing how institutions shape economic opportunity

NORC developed a multi-source, pillar-based framework linking rule of law performance to business-critical risks and investment opportunities worldwide.

NORC updated and strengthened the Global Rule of Law for Business Dashboard by building on its legacy framework, while introducing a clearer, more resilient measurement approach. Rather than simply updating individual data sources, we refined how rule of law conditions are defined, measured, and interpreted to better reflect how they shape business risk and opportunity across markets.

NORC designed a transparent, pillar-based framework organized around five business-relevant dimensions: Transparency, Predictability, Stability, Accountability, and Due Process. Each is structured into clearly defined indicators that capture distinct legal, regulatory, and institutional drivers. To ensure analytical integrity, we systematically reviewed global datasets, prioritized primary data sources such as surveys and expert assessments, and avoided aggregated indices with overlapping inputs. Newer sources, including World Bank B-Ready and Enterprise Surveys, were incorporated to expand coverage and improve insight into performance drivers.

To complement the quantitative results, NORC partnered with the Rule of Law Collaborative at the University of South Carolina to develop trend statements focused on priority themes, regions, and market dynamics of interest to Chamber members. These analyses link Dashboard findings to real-world business conditions, illustrating how rule of law challenges and reforms affect investment and operations in practice. Throughout the process, we validated the framework and results through sensitivity testing and external benchmarking, resulting in a durable, decision-relevant tool for analysis, advocacy, and reform.