In the early years of the Regulatory Institute, it developed a matrix with more than 1,000 jurisdictions adopting laws (states and intra-state entities like Tamil Nadu in India, Patagonia in Argentina and Colorado in the U.S.) on one ax. On the other ax, it listed topics covered by legislation. Looking at the matrix, the Regulatory Institute discovered that very few topics were covered by all jurisdictions. For most of the topics, there were only some erratic dots here and there.

There was no logic detected behind the pattern of topics or sectors being covered or not, except that some topics, such as the fight against money laundering, were pushed by international conventions into almost all jurisdictions while some other topics or sectors, like penal law, are so ancient and essential that we find them everywhere.

This article claims that jurisdictions do not necessarily select their regulatory topics in a rational manner. It introduces criteria and a reflection framework to decide whether a specific topic should be subject to regulation.