The purpose

The Fondation pour le Droit Continental (Civil Law Initiative) seeks to promote the debate on the diversity of legal systems on an international level. An innovative research tool has been developed by the Foundation in this context, namely: a Legal Certainty Index.

Based on the assumption that legal certainty is a key factor of long-term economic and social development and also a reliable indicator of a legal system’s value on an international scale, there was an obvious need for an index that would provide individual analyses by country and by type of indicator as well as global analyses concerning each factor’s overall importance, while remaining unaffiliated to, and uninfluenced by, any specific legal background.

The method

The Legal Certainty Index is the result of collaborative research conducted by leading academics. It has already led to several publications in various national and international legal journals. Contributors are experts in different fields, including civil law, public law, comparative law, international private law, economic law and regulation, but they all have a specific interest in the economic analysis of law. The research relies in great part on testimonies from the protagonists involved in the legal process (a varied panel, in which most legal professions are represented) thus combining sound academic basis with a pragmatic and results-oriented approach. It goes without saying that this cooperation between academics and legal professionals occurs on an international scale, to avoid as much as possible any kind of ethnocentrism, be it of an institutional, social, legal or economic kind.

The Index is structured around three main aspects: predictability, stability and security. These three key indicators are in turn sub-divided into several items, which correspond to appropriate and measurable evaluation criteria. For each of these sub-sections a comprehensive questionnaire is compiled, aiming to cover all the aspects of legal certainty. A separate analysis is conducted for each of these aspects and for each country under scrutiny. The objective point of view (expert analysis) and the subjective point of view (reported perception) are dealt with separately, allowing for a dual perspective on a given legal system: showing it as it really is, but also the way it is generally perceived. Cross-checks and global evaluations are then used to produce a faithful estimation of the degree of predictability, stability and security offered by each legal system.

The process

The preliminary phases of building up theoretical research bases and of compiling the relevant questionnaires have now been completed. Data (answers to questionnaires) are currently being collected and analysed, in view of producing statistic results and broader conclusions by the end of 2011.

The Legal Certainty Index is a vast and ambitious project, both in terms of its scope and of the thoroughness of the analytical methods being used. Over one hundred questions have been devised for each of three main sections, and sent to a panel of academics and professionals representative of the legal field. The 2012 edition of the Index will be concerned with the countries of the G20 group and will be available in French and English. For the 2013 edition it is planned to expand the scope of analysis to include all the countries in the world. The second edition will also be published in several languages.

The Legal Certainty Index constitutes a major innovation in its field, both because of its scope and of its rigorous scientific approach. It is meant to be both an expert reference guide and a practical tool for researchers, legal professionals, economists, politicians and financial decision-makers. It is hoped that this project of the Fondation pour le Droit Continental will constitute a valuable contribution to the world-wide debate on law, thus improving the quality of the institutions, increasing the protagonists’ mutual trust, and, more broadly, playing a part in sustainable development.