This essay addresses the relationships between prescription anddescription in legal rules. The analysis will focus on the culture-laden connotationsof factual categories implied in all legal sentences and/or provisions. This investi-gation is spurred by the need to assess the impact of cultural difference in people’sunderstanding of legal imperatives and, symmetrically, how that impact is to beconsidered in the application of law. Differences in ways of categorizing the worldcould position the cultural pre-understanding required by law, and the pluralismrecognized and protected by constitutional principles and human/fundamental rightsdiscourse, at a crossroads. Hence, even when we find an illegitimacy or an igno-rance about what legal rules do not explicitly state but instead implicitly presuppose,this does not exclude that behind that ignorance there may be something worthy oflegal protection. A question emerges: is it legitimate and reasonable to consider theignorantia factiresulting from differing ways of categorizing the factual world asautomatically and uncritically subject to the principleignoratia legis non excusat?The essay continues with an assessment of the possible consequences ofignorantiafactiin the administration of justice in multicultural societies and migration con-texts. For this purpose, the opportunity for an intercultural use of law—includingwithin national law—will be considered as a means of avoiding the discriminatoryapplication ofignorantia facti. This topic will be addressed by leveraging bothsemiotic and cultural-anthropological analytical tools, including the well-knowngreimasien‘‘contrat de ve ́ridiction’’

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• Ignorantia Facti Excusat: Legal Liabilityand the Intercultural Significance of Greimas’‘‘Contrat de Ve ́ridition’