We live in an age of measurement and quantification which has produced cross-national indicators of concepts like gender equality, war and peace, and gross national happiness, to name just a few.1 The rule of law (RoL) is no exception and recent years have seen a proliferation of indicators that are the subject of a nascent literature.2 The literature points out that indicators inherently reduce complex social phenomena to simple measures with a corresponding loss of information but an increase in tractability.

This chapter will analyse the discourse in France on the relatively new French expression État de droit.1 After an unsuccessful first rise in its use at the beginning of the twentieth century (1907–1930s), the term has since 1977 progressively informed the language of French constitutional law scholars and even penetrated the language of specialists of other legal disciplines, politicians, journalists, and, to some extent, of ordinary citizens.

theory of art in the conventional sense. He does not provide a systematic account of art, nor does he provide criteria for aesthetic judgment. He is concerned rather with the role art plays in forming our culture and its meaning in our individual and communal lives. This chapter situates Gadamer’s views in the context of the history of philosophy–the ancient Greek view of art and the modern views of art, especially the view of Kant. For Gadamer, art is an event of understanding. The concepts of play and the game are important to his account. This chapter considers the temporal, the dialogical, and the communal aspects of art for Gadamer. It considers arts claim to truth. And finally, it shows how Gadamer thinks that art has an important transformative potential.

We live at a time of sobering realism – indeed pessimism – regarding rule of law building after conflict. There are many reasons for this. The inherent difficulty of the endeavor itself is one fundamental factor. Although each country emerging from violent conflict is unique in its history, leadership, culture, and possibilities for progress, they often also face many common challenges. Governing institutions may be discredited, law enforcement and judiciaries may be distrusted, civilians may be recoiling from egregious injury, social divisions may run deep, infrastructure may be devastated, economic opportunities may be limited, and confidence in the very idea of the rule of law may be at an all-time low.

Thomas Hobbes is the founder of the rule by law tradition in modern Western thought. It argues that there is no more to law than what the holder of supreme legislative power chooses to enact, whatever its content. Hobbes founds it in opposition to the conception of the rule of law exemplified in the writings of Sir Edward Coke according to which the common law, as interpreted by judges, contains fundamental legal and moral principles which condition the content of enacted or statute law. Coke and others in this rule by law tradition thus consider the rule of law to be a moral good.

Theorists often begin with the elements or features of the rule of law, frequently distinguishing formal and substantive versions.1 Instead, I explore two other senses. The first sense is that the rule of law exists in a society when government officials and the populace are generally bound by and abide law. Framing the analysis in terms of a society subject to law enables a more expansive view of functions of the rule of law. The second sense construes “the rule of law” as an ideal and as rhetoric, asking what functions are served when people invoke it.

The World Justice Project publishes a “Rule of Law” Index. For 2016 the nations with the highest scores were Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Germany outranked Singapore, which in turn outranked the United States. Russia and Ecuador were tied at the relatively low 45th position, but both were above Bolivia (104) and Venezuela, which came in dead last. The Index attempts to measure compliance with what its sponsors identify as “universal principles of the rule of law.” These are that “[t]he government and its officials and agents as well as individuals and private entities are accountable under the law,” that “laws are clear, publicized, stable, and just, are applied evenly, and protect fundamental rights, including the security of persons and property,” that “[t]he process by which the laws are enacted, administered, and enforced is accessible, fair, and efficient,” and that “[j]ustice is delivered by competent, ethical and independent representatives and neutrals who are of sufficient number, have adequate resources and reflect the makeup of the communities they serve.”1 Some of these universal principles replicate in other terms Lon Fuller’s famous list of elements of the rule of law; others go beyond Fuller’s minimum requirements.

That a concept in common use, such as the rule of law, may be called essentially contested is not a criticism of that concept. Quite the contrary: “essentially contested” is a theoretical designation that draws attention to the way in which arguments about the meaning of a given concept contribute to our understanding and evaluation of the systems, practices, and actions to which the concept is applied.

For readers of legal philosophy, the title of this entry is likely to generate an expectation of a discussion that runs something like this. In the mid-twentieth century, the idea of the rule of law began to figure prominently and problematically within the long-standing debate between legal positivists and natural lawyers about the connections between law and morality. The question that presented itself for answering was the following. Could the positivist “separability thesis” – the argument that there is no necessary connection between law and morality – be said to hold with respect to the connection (if any) between the concept of “law” and the concept of “the rule of law”?

The rule of law is a sane idea gone big. Ever since Albert Venn Dicey, in 1885, popularized the phrase to describe the English way of law, it has left an indelible mark on societies the world over, and not always in a beneficial way.4 Unmoored from the context in which – and for which – it was first formulated, the idea has turned into a doctrine, some even think of it as an ideology. With its ancient origins, medieval roots, and modern instantiations, the idea of the rule of law – known by most, contested by many – has informed local and global ways of life like few other figments of our imagination.

The central concept of Truth and Method is the understanding. It provides an account of how we understand things. We understand things interpretively. This chapter discusses understanding as ߢpractical know-howߣ and as agreement. Understanding has a cognitive, a practical, and a linguistic element. Understanding is contextual and circular. The hermeneutical circle is the heart of the Gadamerߣs notion of the understanding.

This Companion provides an introduction to the theory and history of the rule of law, and thus to one of the most frequently invoked – and least understood – ideas of legal and political thought. Not so long ago, the “rule of law” was regarded as a rather esoteric expression, one employed by common lawyers – alongside such expressions as the Rechtsstaat, État de droit, and Stato di diritto that their continental confrères invoked – to identify certain technical features of the legal systems in which they worked.