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Abortion
0-5
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| Data comes from Wikipedia (2014) and from World Abortion Laws (2013). Abortion policies vary significantly between countries from abortions performed on request to the absolute prohibition. |
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Alcohol
0-3
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| Alcohol is accepted almost everywhere in the world except for a dozen of Muslim countries. The map is the most yellow (thus liberal) when compared to all other maps of our collation. Minor differences concern such aspects as age from which it is allowed to buy alcohol or bans on consuming alcohol in certain public places. Data comes from years 2013 to 2014. |
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Army
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2013 to 2014. We consider mandatory conscription into military service as a nationalistic relic. |
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Art
0-3
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| The indicator of the artistic freedom is under development and is one of the most subjective indicators in our collection. Data comes from years 1980 to 2014. We are aware of the difficulties to make this indicator more objective but we have decided to include it. Usually, the arts (art, literature, music, cinema, ... ) become first victims of totalitarian regimes, religions, anti-liberalism. A society that does not care about freedom of an artist will destroy liberty itself ten years later. |
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Atheism
0-3
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| “Religious freedom” is a classic indicator of liberty. We have decided to replace it with “freedom from religion” which combines statistics on irreligion and freedom from the influence of religion in social life. These statistics can be erroneous for different reasons; evaluation of freedom from religion can be subjective. In our opinion, after the fall of totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, fascism and communism, religion has become the most prominent and stern enemy of freedom and emancipation. Data comes from the period 2011-2014. |
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Capital Punishment
0-3
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| Data comes from the year 2014. We combine capital punishment and life imprisonment in one indicator. In our opinion the death penalty is an anachronism indicating a low level of social consciousness. |
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Children
0-3
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| Data comes from 2014. You can find more detailed description of the criteria on the Humanium website. |
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Democracy
0-5
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| Data comes from years 2012-2014 and may not reflect the current situation in countries undergoing profound political changes. In the case of democratic countries we assess not only existence of democracy as such but a degree of citizens’ participation in public life also. In the case of non-democratic countries we try to take into account the actual state of the matter and not the government propaganda. |
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Drugs
0-5
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| Data comes from years 2005 to 2014. We are firmly in the position that “the war on drugs”, and not the drugs, is one of the major problems of our times. The state of legal matter and the state of social education are both disastrous in the most part of the world. The indicator takes into account all drugs and freedom involving use, possession, trafficking and production or cultivation of drugs. The war on drugs is a war against humanity. |
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Economy
0-5
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| Data reflects the Heritage Foundation ranking of 2014. Most indicators used today to compare countries are of the economic type. We think that economic freedom and material wealth are important but they do not measure freedom necessarily. A conclusion drawn from our analysis of 31 indicators is this: there is a considerable number of countries that are anti-liberal and rich at the same time. |
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Euthanasia
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2005-2014. We are aware of the fact that this data may be subject of a systematic error. It may be that in many regions of the world euthanasia is frequent and is nothing new. In this case, the difference between what is legal and social practice is extremely difficult to measure. |
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Freedom of Speech
0-5
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| Data comes from years 2004 to 2014. Indicators of freedom of speech, democracy and internet censorship are the most obvious and fundamental indicators of liberty in general. These indicators, along with the economic one, are the best documented and thus the most objective probably. |
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Gmo
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2000-2014 and may be obsolete in some cases due to rapid changes of the law in this matter. Cultivation of GMO is not a personal freedom but it may indicate indirectly a high level of social education and moving away from a magical conception of nature. We are aware that inclusion of this indicator to our index is controversial (as well as several others) but we are firmly in a position that science and art are two fields of human activity which are the most obvious manifestations of liberty. |
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Hominids
0-3
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| Next to man, hominids are: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. We share about 95% of the DNA with them. Is freedom of value only for man? Do our closest relatives suffer in captivity also? Since they will not respond this question we have to find and give the answer. |
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Immigration
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2010-2014. In our opinion solidarity and willingness to share follows freedom. The current state of hospitality to people from other countries is disastrous almost everywhere. The tendency to criminalize “illegal” immigration is widespread. This is something new in the history of the world. Unlike other indicators in our collection this one has more critical and evaluative character than scientific or comparative. Building walls always ends up in their destruction. |
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Internet
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2012-2014. We combine here two aspects of the internet related to liberty: censorship and governmental espionage. They affect freedom in different ways. We do not dispute whether the bigger problem is censorship or routine and unjustified violation of privacy. Both are directed against freedom. |
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Lgbt
0-5
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| Data comes from 2014 and may be out-of-date soon due to rapid evolution and liberalization of the law in many countries. We took into account primarily the legality of homosexuality and recognition of marriage between persons of the same gender. |
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Nuclear Power
0-3
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Data comes from 2014. Use of nuclear energy is not a personal freedom itself. However, we suppose that it may indicate indirectly two important aspects of free societies:
1. Social maturity to solve difficult problems requiring the cooperation of many people;
2. A general tendency to move away from the magic or religious conception of the universe. |
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Nudity
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2013-2014. We have collected the data from a few countries only. Ironically, it turns out that, generally, the closer to the equator, the more severe the law is. |
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Polygamy
0-3
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| Data comes from 2014. Muslim countries score low in many of our rankings. But there are liberties that Islamic societies implement better; polygamy is one of them. In this indicator we combine polygyny and polyandry under one name of polygamy. We realize that this freedom comes usually in conflict with women rights. Such coming into conflict, however, is not an exception; freedoms and rights come into conflicts systematically. |
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Pornography
0-3
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| Data comes from the period 2011-2014. We take into account printed media and movies primarily, internet censorship in the second place. |
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Prisons
0-5
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| Data comes from 2014. The indicator represents the ratio of people in prisons by country. More detailed information about criteria on the Prison Studies website. |
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Prostitution
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2009-2014. This indicator is completed by an indicator of sexual tourism. There are countries in which the law and its enforcement converge and the countries where they are almost completely disjoint worlds. We decided to leave two separate indicators despite similarity of the subject. |
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Purchase of Land
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2010-2014. Let’s consider such a scenario: an Uruguayan citizen wants to buy a land in Korea. Can he? Wherever possible, we take into account legal rules concerning the purchase of the land. In some cases, due to lack of data, we took into account a possibility of buying a house or an apartment. If, in a given country, the purchase of the land is reserved only to people of short-listed selected nationalities then we assign a low rank because the sale is forbidden for the majority of foreigners. And this is clearly contrary to the basic understanding of freedom and equality. |
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Science
0-5
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| Data comes from years 2004 to 2014. This indicator of scientific freedom is under development and it is one of the most subjective indicators in our collection. Gathering data and its evaluation is a difficult task. We decided, however, to make such an attempt. To begin, we take into account the most controversial issues such as stem-cell research, cloning, genetic research and technology related to the most fundamental questions of life. We think that once created this indicator, altogether with indicators of freedom of art and drugs, may become a trinity of the most sensible indicators of freedom in general. |
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Sex Tourism
0-3
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| Data comes from years 2000 to 2014. This indicator complements the prostitution indicator. |
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Slavery
0-5
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| Data comes from years 2013 to 2014. Today, slavery is a marginal problem, however, in some countries there are still systematic violations of that basic human right and personal freedom. |
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Suicide
0-3
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| Data comes from years 1998 to 2014. Suicides and suicide attempts have been decriminalized in the Western countries relatively late. We are in the anti-religious and anti-totalitarian position; the right to dispose one’s own life is not entitled to anyone else under any circumstances. |
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Torture
0-3
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| Amnesty International figures come from 2012, other data from years 2000 to 2014. We take into account official data as well as unproven allegations against many countries which cooperated with the CIA organizing a network of secret prisons or allowing stopovers for aircraft adapted to torture. We are aware of the impossibility to present the evidence in court. At the same time, we have very good reasons to believe that torture did take place. Double standards in this matter is particularly hideous. |
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Violence
0-5
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| Data comes from 2014. We take into account only the homicide ratio as a violence indicator. We do not include rape, robbery and other violent acts. |
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Women
0-5
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| Data comes from years 2009-2014. We took into account formally vested rights of women as well as two other important indicators: a sense of physical security and differences in economic status between genders. |
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