Materials for LW313 (Critical Introduction to Law)

Q-Step Integration

Materials for LW313 (Critical Introduction to Law)

This document provides a draft seminar task for LW313. As I said in the previous document, the nature of the task can also be easily changed without changing the content, so feel free to tinker/suggest changes.[1] It contains the following:
Seminar leader instructions (inc. advance preparation)
Country list (to print and cut out)
Instructions to students for preparation
Student in-class worksheet
And again to repeat something I said before, this is one of the first modules that we’re integrating as part of Q-Step, so your patience is hugely appreciated! And we would really valuable your feedback and suggestions for changes, so any initial thoughts are really helpful, and we’ll also be back in touch during the academic year to see how you found the whole process, and how students responded to it.

Ben Baumberg, 3/9/2014

Seminar leader instructions

A little preparation is needed for the class – you need to:
Print out the various different documents below, and in the case of the country list, you will need to cut this into individual countries for each group (for the introductory task). It would also be helpful to print out at least 2 copies of each of the reading extracts for each group, if your students tend not to bring printed copies of the reading.
If you haven’t used sound/video in the seminar room previously, then it’s worth turning up slightly earlier to make sure that this works.
You will also need some blutack for the introductory task.

Introductory task (10-15mins)

Divide the students into groups – perhaps 3-4 groups in the class, depending on its size.
Give students the list of 10 countries below. Ask them in groups to rank these according to how good a place they think they are to do business, blu-tacking these to the wall in order. Tell them not to consult their reading notes or printouts if they have them!
The actual Doing Business rankings are then displayed by Powerpoint, allowing a short time for students to discuss these.
Then ask them if they would rank the countries in the same way according to how strong the rule of law is in each country.
Then present the WJP rankins by Powerpoint, again allowing a short time for discussion.

Main task (30-35mins)

Give students the worksheet below, which gives the point of view of a government treasury official in a newly-independent upper middle-income country (the text imitates the actual style of Ministerial submissions, at least in the UK).
Ask the student in groups to prepare a response (as in the worksheet) - two people in each group should speak. You can leave students to decide who does which role themselves if you prefer, but I generally allocate roles to students (giving some roles to students who are generally quiet, and others to students who will contribute well to the discussion).
Give them 20mins to look over the material and formulate an argument. Then give each group 2-3mins to present its counter-argument and recommendation. Key arguments include:
The Doing Business index includes various measures that we might not think are good for everyone in society – they prioritise big business over smaller informal businesses, lower taxation levels etc. (See the video below). Try and push the students to look carefully at the individual measures that make up the Doing Business index.
Malaysia does well on the Doing Business Index, but much worse on the Rule of Law Index, which we might think is a better measure of a ‘good’ legal system – while other upper middle-income countries do better. (Chile does well on both indices, while Georgia – a lower middle-income country – does even better!). Try and push students to compare the indices in detail where they can.
They may also argue about whether there is a causal relationship between these scores and economic development (or other valued outcomes); the extent to which legal systems can be simply transplanted from one country to another; whether these indices capture any of the things that matter in a legal system; or many other points!

[See concluding section overleaf]

Concluding section (5mins)

For the first part of the conclusion, show them the following video (it’s only 1½ minutes long) – this is the view of a campaigning group about the Doing Business Rankings:

For the second part of the conclusion, recap the following points:
Legal systems can be counted, and these do provide some useful information, particularly when comparing different legal systems internationally.
BUT counting is not an ideologically neutral activity – as the video suggests. Numbers are only meaningful when you understand what is being counted, and you should always be prepared to dig a little deeper to understand what they mean.
Please make sure you allow a full 5mins for this concluding section – it is important for them to be able to bring together these tasks into a take-home message!

Finally, if you have any questions then just get in touch with Ben Baumberg () as well as Amanda, and either way I will be in touch afterwards to find out how the class went – this is part of a new initiative that we’re piloting across the Faculty. And more importantly, I hope that both you and the students enjoy the class!

Country list

These countries should be printed then cut into separate pieces of paper per country.

Malaysia
(upper middle-income) / UK
Venezuela
(upper middle-income) / Hong Kong SAR, China
Chile
(upper middle-income) / Denmark
Romania
(upper middle-income) / Ghana
(lowermiddle-income)
China
(upper middle-income) / Georgia
(lowermiddle-income)

[The underlining will be mentioned in the next task!]

Instructions to students for preparation for the class

The purpose of this seminar is to get you to critically assess the evidence on which legal systems globally are ‘best’. This also ties into wider questions about ‘quantification’, understanding what it means to turn a legal system into a number: what it can tell you, and what it can’t.

Please read the listed extracts from both of the following two reports – the seminar task will be based on these, and it will require active participation from everyone!

World Bank Doing Business report 2014

Available for free from
See particularly pages 1-3 that summarise the rankings and p155-158 that talk about the ‘distance to the frontier; and pages 118-122 are also interesting about a section that they had to remove because it was so contentious!
It’s also useful to look over p130-153 that tell you what’s in the rankings in a bit more detail.

The World Justice Project Rule of Law Index report 2014

Available for free from
See particularly pages 4-11, 174, 176.
It’s also useful to look over pages 14-49 that tell you what’s in the rankings in a bit more detail.

If you have an electronic device (tablet/laptop) that you can use to read the report in class, then please bring this with you – we won’t have printouts of the full reports in the seminar!

Student worksheet

Read the following Ministerial briefing note, and then turn overleaf for instructions.

MINISTERIAL BRIEFING NOTE

From: Senior Policy Advisor (Ministry of Finance)

To: Minister for Finance, Minister for Justice

Date: 3rd September 2014

Reforming our legal system: overarching policy direction

Issue: The Government committed in their manifesto to reform our outdated legal system, to make us a country fit for the 21st Century. I was asked by the Minister for Finance to find 1-2 countries at similar levels of development – that is, upper middle-income countries – that offer best practice models for us to follow.

After reviewing the issue, I have concluded that the World Bank’s measures of legal systems are the most academically robust and internationally respected, and there is also strong evidence that improving our score on this measure would lead to higher economic growth. The best-performing (‘frontier’) upper middle-income country in 2014 was Malaysia, whom we lag behind particularly in the areas of ‘Starting a Business’, ‘Paying Taxes’ and ‘Employing Workers’.

Recommendation: To reform our legal system to resemble the Malaysian legal system as closely as possible, particularly in the areas of ‘Starting a Business’, ‘Paying Taxes’ and ‘Employing Workers’.

Annexes: World Bank ‘Doing Business’ Report 2014

Copy list: Permanent Secretary for Finance, Permanent Secretary for Justice

Instructions for this class:

Your task is to imagine that you are a Senior Policy Advisor in the Ministry of Justice. In your group, you should prepare a 2-3min verbal presentation in response to the Ministerial briefing note, which you then give to the rest of class. This should cover two things, with one person within your group dealing with point #1, and a different person dealing with point #2.
Firstly, you should critically assess the claim from the Advisor from the Ministry of Finance. In doing this, think about:
What does the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking actually measure? How many of these things would you personally agree are characteristics of an ideal legal system?
A different way of measuring legal systems exists – the WJP’s Rule of Law. Is this closer to your idea of what an ideal legal system would look like?
You can also cover any other arguments that you think are relevant!
Secondly, you should make a recommendation about a different country that you think that your (upper middle-income country) should try and move towards. In giving your recommendation, use the material from the two different legal rankings – and your critical assessment of them – to make your case.

Questions to consider after the seminar…

How far do you agree with Ralf Michaels that “law remains, at some stage, too complex to be measured”?
How far do you agree with Bill Gates (at that “If you want to improve the rule of law, you need a way to measure it”?
The evidence shows that countries with ‘better’ legal systems (on the World Bank’s measure) have higher levels of development. Does this mean that ‘better’ legal systems cause higher development? What else might explain this pattern?

[1] So for example, instead of the debate format, students could be asked to do role plays (World Bank person vs. WJP person vs. academic critic vs. adjudicator/interrogator).