10“Withoutsecurity orthe rule oflaw, libertyis degradedor even meaningless.”Table 1Structure of the Personal Freedom Index1. Legal Protection and SecurityA. Rule of Lawi. Procedural Justiceii. Civil Justiceiii. Criminal JusticeB. Security and Safetyi. Homicideii. Disappearances, Conflict, and Terrorisma. Disappearancesb. Violent Conflictsc. Internal Organized Conflictd. Terrorism Fatalitiese. Terrorism Injuriesiii. Women’s Securitya. Female Genital Mutilationb. Missing Womenc. Inheritance2. Specific Personal FreedomsA. Movementi. Foreign Movementii. Domestic Movementiii. Women’s MovementB. Religioni. Freedom to Establish Religious Organizationsii. Autonomy of Religious OrganizationsC. Association, Assembly, and Civil Societyi. Freedom of Associationii. Freedom of Assembly and Demonstrationiii. Autonomy of Organizationsa. Political Partiesb. Professional Organizationsc. Educational, Sporting, and Cultural Organizationsiv. Freedom to Establish OrganizationsD. Expressiona. Political Partiesb. Professional Organizationsc. Educational, Sporting, and Cultural Organizationsi. Press Killingsii. Laws and Regulations that Influence Media Contentiii. Political Pressures and Controls on Media Content
Table 1 Continuediv. Freedom of Access to Foreign Information—in the countries in the survey. In addition, itincludes indicators on rule of law, crime and violence,freedom of movement, and legal discriminationagainst same-sex relationships. We alsoinclude five variables pertaining to women’sfreedom that are found in various categoriesof the index. (For an overview of the sources ofour data, see the table in Appendix B.)We would have liked to have included otherimportant variables, such as those quantifyingdrug and alcohol prohibition, but we found noreliable data sources that conformed to ourmethodological principles. What follows is abrief description and justification of the datawe use. For a more detailed description of thedata sources, what they measure, and theirmethodology, see Appendix C.Rule of Lawa. Access to Foreign Televisionb. Access to Foreign Newspapersv. State Control over Internet AccessE. Relationshipsi. Parental Rightsii. Same-sex Relationshipsa. Male-to-Male Relationshipb. Female-to-Female RelationshipThe rule of law is an essential conditionof freedom that protects the individual fromcoercion by others. John Locke’s emphasis onthe importance of law in securing and enlargingfreedom, cited above, is an early formulationof that concept. A society ruled “by law,not men” implies that laws apply to everybody,including the authorities, that they be publiclyknown and understood, and that they limitthe arbitrary decisions of rulers. To furtherincrease the scope of individual freedom andreduce potential rule by personal will, Hayekproposed that laws be general and abstract;that is, that they be ignorant of particular casesand “not single out any particular persons orgroup of persons.” 14 The above attributes alsoprovide a social order which allows people tomore easily pursue their individual ends. Individualfreedom is therefore dependent on therule of law, a broad concept that encompassesdue process, equal treatment under the law,accountability of government officials, andnotions of fairness, predictability, and justice.We use indicators from the World JusticeProject’s Rule of Law Index 15 that are consistentwith our definition of freedom. It shouldbe noted that the Economic Freedom of theWorld index includes nine variables in the areaof “Legal System and Property Rights” thatseek to measure “how effectively the protectivefunctions of government are performed.”Thus, the rule of law measures included in thepersonal freedom index add to those in theeconomic freedom index to produce a somewhatheavier weighting of the rule of law in theoverall Human Freedom Index.The first component [1Ai] rates what wehave termed procedural justice. It is composedof the average of three indicators measuring“the right to life and security” of a person; “dueprocess of law and rights of the accused;” and“freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy.”The first of those indicators refers to violationsby the police or government when conductingan arrest or a search, for example. 16 Thesecond indicator refers to such issues as the extentto which police or the authorities respectthe presumption of innocence, arrest peopleon genuine and formally declared charges, treat11“The ruleof law is anessentialcondition offreedom thatprotects theindividualfrom coercionby others.”
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