there is a difference.

I see "rule of law" as something that arises from the People (and yes, I agree with Dayuhan that "village factions" exist); but, if a rule of law develops, it results from a sythesis of the theses and anti-theses of those factions. As such, it (the rule of law) is a valid expression of "self-determination" - something that could be called "legal" ("hey, Mr Lawyer, is this legal ?") or "legitimate".

Much of the world (and too often us - USAians) translates our self-determinate "rule of law" as "rule by law". The latter could be called "positive law" imposed from above - that is, by whatever elites happen to be be ruling the roost. The dichotomy between "rule by law" and "rule of law" is illustrated in Manchu law, where the imperial codes represented "rule by law" and village traditional law (preferred by the villagers) came closer to our "rule of law".

The bottom line is that in most of the world (and often in the US), I will have to do a lot of explaining to get across what I mean by "rule of law". And, after all that, the listener may still think that I am speaking about "rule by law".

Another case where closely-sounding terms mean very different things.

Mike