Civil law codes are often just as ambiguous as common law systems. The only difference is that in a civil law system, you can’t firmly rely on precedent, so a judge can interpret the law against you just because he doesn’t like you, even in the face of contrary precedent.

That’s in part why international business to business contracts almost always specify a common law jurisdiction as the required venue for any lawsuits.

Well, there’s the law (federal, state, etc), then the additional regulatory rulings (federal, state, etc), then the as-applied department policies. Not really a lack of “law” but a mess of constraints that need to be deciphered into functional requirements with footnotes, matrixed to testing and preserved/maintained for the next guy. Ugh.. I want to charge the gov. 2k hrs for just thinking about it today.