Pilot 2026
Does the state leave you alone?
The Civil Liberties Index scores countries on one question: what can the state do to a peaceful adult who says, owns, takes or chooses something unpopular? We score the hardest case: the Holocaust denier, the person buying their own antibiotics, the gun owner, the person who wants to die.
Scores
0–10 per category, each the mean of its vignette scores; 10 means the state has no say. Click any cell to see the vignettes, reasoning and sources behind it. Countries ranked by the mean of 12 equally weighted categories. “Weakest 3” is the mean of a country's three worst categories.
| # | Country | Mean | Weakest 3 | Speech | Libel | Arms | Self-defense | Medical | Right to die | Drugs | Sex & family | Privacy | Conscience | Exit | Property & process |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 6.1 | 3.1 | 9.4 | 7.6 | 6.6 | 8.2 | 4.9 | 1.9 | 2.5 | 5.4 | 7.2 | 9.2 | 5.5 | 4.9 |
| 2 | New Zealand | 5.8 | 2.3 | 6.4 | 5.9 | 2.0 | 6.3 | 5.3 | 2.6 | 2.4 | 7.6 | 5.5 | 9.7 | 8.6 | 7.1 |
| 3 | Netherlands | 5.7 | 4.0 | 4.9 | 5.9 | 3.0 | 5.8 | 4.9 | 5.5 | 4.2 | 6.1 | 5.4 | 8.1 | 8.0 | 6.4 |
| 4 | Czechia | 5.7 | 3.0 | 3.3 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 7.5 | 4.2 | 1.6 | 4.3 | 7.2 | 6.0 | 8.5 | 7.5 | 6.5 |
| 5 | Switzerland | 5.4 | 2.6 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 5.3 | 6.6 | 5.3 | 7.6 | 3.4 | 6.3 | 6.7 | 7.7 | 6.0 | 5.5 |
| 6 | Germany | 5.3 | 2.8 | 1.2 | 4.0 | 4.3 | 7.4 | 4.0 | 7.0 | 3.3 | 4.1 | 7.4 | 7.8 | 7.2 | 5.4 |
| 7 | Denmark | 5.2 | 1.9 | 3.5 | 4.1 | 2.6 | 6.5 | 5.8 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 7.7 | 5.4 | 9.3 | 6.5 | 8.3 |
| 8 | Ireland | 4.9 | 0.7 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 0.2 | 6.5 | 4.8 | 0.7 | 1.3 | 5.8 | 7.1 | 9.8 | 7.3 | 5.6 |
| 9 | United Kingdom | 4.9 | 0.6 | 3.0 | 4.6 | 0.2 | 6.0 | 5.2 | 0.9 | 0.7 | 8.5 | 6.1 | 9.5 | 7.5 | 6.0 |
| 10 | Mexico | 4.8 | 2.2 | 5.1 | 4.6 | 2.0 | 5.7 | 5.2 | 1.6 | 3.0 | 6.1 | 6.9 | 8.2 | 5.0 | 4.5 |
| 11 | Singapore | 3.8 | 0.5 | 2.4 | 3.3 | 1.1 | 5.4 | 4.0 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 6.2 | 6.7 | 2.8 | 7.4 | 5.9 |
How we measure
The hardest case
A right is measured by how it treats its least sympathetic user. Protecting popular conduct costs a state nothing.
Law and practice
Every vignette gets a score for what the law allows and for what police and prosecutors actually do. Practice weighs more, but dead-letter laws still count.
The process is the punishment
Arrests, raids and years of litigation chill people even when nobody is convicted. We subtract for them.
Negative rights only
No points for spending. A state scores better by forbidding less, not by providing more.