The Rule of Law Among Nations: Elements for a Definition

With the adoption of the Resolution 61/39 The Rule of Law at the national and international levels, the General Assembly of the United Nations established, for the first time, an express distinction between domestic and international aspects of the Rule of Law. Since the adoption of this Resolution, the General Assembly has focused the debate on the study of the international aspects of the Rule of Law from the definition proposed by the Secretary General of the United Nations in his Report the Rule of Law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict Societies. In this paper the author analyzes those elements of the Rule of Law which have been extrapolated to the international level, within the practice of the General Assembly, in order to develop an ad hoc definition of the international aspect of this principle that, for the purposes of this paper, will be identify as the Rule of Law among Nations.