This is the
fourth year the Eurasia Group has published the Atlas of Impunity. It tracks
conditions, accountability, and abuse of power in over 200 countries. Impunity
is power without accountability. The report argues successfully that the vast
majority of the problems around the world are fostered by governments with high
levels of impunity.
“Impunity is assessed across five dimensions:
unaccountable governance, the abuse of human rights, economic exploitation,
conflict and violence, and environmental degradation.”
“The Atlas is intended to provide a practical and
accessible tool to draw attention to abuses of power and press policymakers for
change. Impunity should also be a concern for the private sector, as wherever
impunity thrives, business conditions deteriorate.”
The report draws on 60
indicators from 24 credible independent datasets.
“The Atlas is developed in partnership between Eurasia
Group and a global advisory board of human rights experts. The Atlas is made
possible with financial support from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, formerly
Carnegie Corporation of New York.”
The report first gives some
quotes by the UN and some Democracy groups that democracy and accountability
have backslid in recent years, including in the U.S., which has moved down in
the ranks of accountability. Militantism, corruption, and human rights abuses
are three of the most important activities of impunity.
The report states that:
“…unaccountable governance is the most significant
global driver of impunity.”
This is expressed most
readily in declining press freedom. In the U.S., the report suggests, the
problem is growing “disregard for accountability norms.”
The introduction also
explains “why impunity should concern business leaders as much as it does
activists, policymakers, and ordinary citizens.”
For business, it is simply
that where impunity rises, business conditions deteriorate. It increases
political risk and enables corruption.
In the introduction is a
section entitled: ‘Six things you will learn from this report.’ This acts as a
set of highlights or a concise summary of the report, so I will lean heavily on
it.
1) The
great divergence in global accountability is widening. Here,
they note that while average global accountability has remained the same, the
gap between the most and the least accountable has widened. Accountability has
improved in the most accountable and middle sections, but has deteriorated
further in the least accountable countries.
2) Unaccountable
governance is the single largest driver of global impunity. Here
they simply point out that “institutional decay—specifically the erosion of
press freedoms, personal liberties, and democratic political culture—serves as
a primary engine of rising impunity.”
3) Most of
the toll of conflict is concentrated in just a few territories. Here,
they show that conflict around the world is highly concentrated in relatively
few regions, but overwhelmingly involves high-impunity countries.
4) Impunity
is fueled by four underlying causes. These are given below:
5) Impunity
spreads through the erosion of the elements of accountability. Here,
they draw on public administration scholarship to arrive at what they see as
the four pillars of accountability, which are weakened by impunity.
6) The US
has emerged as a bellwether—its policies are both a cause and consequence of
global impunity. Here, they note the Trump
administration’s lack of accountability, and especially cite the dismantling of
USAID, noting: “Cuts to aid have dealt severe blows to the global network of
actors that uphold rules, norms, and human rights worldwide.”
The
graphic below shows how levels of impunity are scored.
“The Atlas of Impunity measures the extent to which a
typical person living in each country in the world experiences impunity across
five dimensions. These are the abuse of human rights, conflict and violence,
economic exploitation, environmental degradation, and unaccountable governance.”
The graphic below is an
example of the different scoring mechanisms used, such as press freedom and
democracy indices, as well as showing that people in the average category of
impunity can still be exposed to a high degree of it.
The report notes that among
high impunity countries, unaccountable governance, and conflict and violence
are driving further deterioration. They also note that unaccountable governance
has been the leading source of impunity since 2020.
Below, they summarize
conflicts around the world since 2020.
“Since 2020, conflict has become a more frequent threat
across a range of countries. Over the last two years, war has affected at least
12 states in the Middle East either directly or indirectly. The effects of the
7 October attacks on Israel, the subsequent Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and the
US and Israel’s 12-day war and 2026 war with Iran have rippled across the
region. These developments have added to ongoing conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar,
Yemen, and Ukraine, as well as more limited clashes involving states such as
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Rwanda, and the
Democratic Republic of Congo, among others.”
They also note that reduced
press freedom made the largest contribution to impunity in 2020-2025. Below is
a more comprehensive graphic showing the four pillars of accountability, the
drivers of impunity, and the indicators used in analysis.
Below is a snippet of a stark analysis of
eroding press freedom by a collaborator in the Atlas, the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
Other indicators include
politically motivated disappearances, ecological footprint, refugee
displacement, electoral process and pluralism, protection of property rights
(something many in the DSA in the U.S. do not support), democratic political
culture, functioning of government, freedoms and civil liberties, and
government integrity.
Less accountable governments
often have lax environmental rules, and environmental protection does not rank
high on priorities. In some rare cases, like Bolivia under socialists, they had
higher support for environmental protection but were lax on other freedoms.
Refugee displacement is often a result of conflict, but also of dysfunctional
and highly corrupt governments, and as they note, growing illiberalism, as
people escape due to the possibility of being targeted for opposing the
government. Addressing impunity in countries that are the source of refugees
could help solve the multiple migration crises occurring around the world.
Weaker electoral processes and weaker pluralism are important indicators. We
have seen this in Latin American countries, but also all over the world as
leaders try to hold onto power and not allow people to oppose them in fair
ways, such as through political pluralism and free and fair elections. They
mention a tit-for-tat cycle in some countries, where even if a new government
is legitimately elected over a government that has shown a lack of
accountability, the new government will, in kind, show a lack of accountability
to balance against it. Perhaps it’s not the best analogy, but the recent
gerrymander wars in U.S. states initiated by Trump are perhaps a related
example.
The report notes that the
Trump administration has enacted many executive orders that have advanced a
trend toward illiberalism.
“Illiberalism has advanced so far that the president and
many American voters are now vocal skeptics of the US’s twentieth-century
ideals of universal human rights, free trade, and collective security.”
Another section indicates
that the effective halting of most U.S. foreign aid is likely to have serious
consequences for accountability around the world While I agree with Rubio and
others that several UN agencies and many NGOs are very unfair to countries like
Israel and have unacceptable political biases, I believe more strongly that
U.S. foreign aid on balance still had/has overwhelmingly positive effects on
accountability and more importantly on humanitarian reduction of suffering. The
report notes:
“While many of the canceled initiatives focused on
economic development or humanitarian assistance, USAID grants were also an
important resource for strengthening accountability. For instance, the
individual grants canceled by DOGE included programs to boost state
accountability and transparency in Nigeria, improve the quality and
transparency of public services in Tanzania, fight corruption in Ukraine,
strengthen the rule of law in Georgia, assist independent media in Myanmar,
provide material support to refugees and their host communities in Uganda, and
strengthen electoral processes in Armenia, Haiti, Tunisia, the Palestinian
Territories, and Moldova, among other countries.”
It still makes me a little
sad and angry that the U.S. actively chose to stop supporting democracy around
the world.
In a section called ‘reasons
for hope,’ there is a more optimistic outlook showing where positive changes
have occurred. This was led by a decrease in discrimination against women,
followed by a decrease in the number of battles and a decrease in state
violence against civilians.
Below is a map of the
impunity scores by country. Below that is a list of the countries showing the
most deterioration and the most improvement in the past year, and the same for
2020-2025.
The graphs below show clearly
how impunity increases default risk, political risk, and corruption.
The report then explores
impunity by region. North America is led by Canada, having the least impunity.
Europe as a whole has the best regional score for low impunity. They note that
impunity scores have improved in four of the countries seeking EU membership:
Moldova, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia. In the Eurasian region,
Ukraine’s score remained the same. Corruption scandals there are problematic,
although they are being addressed by the government. Russia has the worst score
in that region, and Kazakhstan has the best. In Latin America, Venezuela and
Haiti had the worst scores, followed by Nicaragua. Mexico, Cuba, Colombia,
Ecuador, Honduras, and Guatemala also had low scores. Nearly all countries in
South Asia had poor scores, led by Afghanistan, and followed by Pakistan and
Bangladesh. The small country of Bhutan had the best score. In Southeast Asia,
Myanmar had by far the worst score, followed distantly by Cambodia and Laos. In
East Asia, North Korea has the worst score, followed distantly by China. Japan
and South Korea have the best scores, followed distantly by Mongolia. In the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA), there were many low scores. Yemen and
Syria have the worst scores, followed by Iran, Iraq, and Libya. Israel has the
best score. Syria’s score reflects the effects of its past conflicts, and the
report notes that accountability continues to improve in the country. The
report notes that the Palestinian Territories were not included in the report,
but if they were, they would be number ten in the highest levels of impunity.
Impunity in Sub-Saharan Africa remains very high in general. Sudan, South
Sudan, and Somalia have the highest levels of impunity. Botswana and Namibia
have the lowest levels of impunity.
Below are the 25 countries
with the highest impunity and the 23 countries with the lowest impunity. I
should add that the overall scores reflect the combined index scores. Some
countries may do very poorly on some scores and better on others, which might
make them seem better or worse than they really are. Evidence suggests that the most dangerous and uncooperative countries in the world are Iran, Russia, North Korea, and, to a lesser extent, China.
The report’s conclusion
includes the following warning:
“Countering the normalization of the abnormal”
“Ultimately, the most insidious effect of rising global
impunity is its potential to normalize the abnormal. When the world's most
powerful actors treat international law as optional and domestic checks as
inconveniences, they invite similar behavior from other powers and autocratic
regimes.”
References:
The
Atlas of Impunity 2025: the great divergence. The Eurasia Group. June 29, 2026.
Eurasia Group | Atlas of Impunity
