VIENNA, JULY 3: Imagine slapping a Government on a grocer’s scale and measuring how its top leaders, officials and judges are behaving. Prominent experts from 95 nations say their new ‘Rule of Law Index’ unveiled on Thursday does just that —and could help the US and others accused of abuse and compromise in the pursuit of terrorists recommit to basic principles of law and human rights.

“The so-called war on terror has brought with it subtle changes. We talk about ‘coercive interrogation’ instead of what it really is — torture,” former Irish President Mary Robinson told participants at the World Justice Forum in Vienna. “For the majority of the world’s citizens, the rules of the game are fundamentally unfair.”

Potentially, the prototype index could be used to increase pressure on nations like Zimbabwe, thrust into international isolation after sham elections.

But its architects insist that the index is there to ensure that everyone benefits from the rule of law.

The Rule of Law Index will not rank countries on a scale. Instead, it will offer comprehensive snapshots of how governments and court systems are performing in key areas, based on numerous interviews with local experts and with 1,000 randomly selected citizens in any given nation.

The factors used to measure a country’s behaviour are corruption, respect for property rights, Government officials’ accountability to the law, access to services and existence of an impartial judiciary.

Th index was developed by justice experts from Yale University, Stanford University , The Hague, Netherlands.