From the earliest times, rulers invoked their gods to give laws authority. The Jewish Torah enshrined laws by tradition given to Moses by God. King Wu of the Chinese Zhou dynasty similarly claimed a divine mandate for his rule. In the 4th century CE, Christianity’s Catholic canon law developed into a legal system that has influenced modern civil law and common law, while Islamic Sharia law is based on the word of Allah in the Koran.


Long after the Greek and Roman civilizations declined, barbaric forms of justice existed in medieval Europe. In the absence of evidence or credible witnesses, alleged offenders (usually the poor) could be tried by ordeal, their innocence gauged by how well they recovered from physical ordeals, such as scalding or burning. Some disputes were settled by trial by combat: a physical fight.

Trial by ordeal was banned by a 13th-century papal decree; trial by combat persisted much longer.


While criminal, property, and commerce laws have existed since ancient times and been steadily adjusted and refined, legislation concerning civil and human rights had to be fought for and even today is not universally adopted.


Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness.


Rules of conduct, initially based on customs and religious beliefs, became formalized, and laws were codified.


As nations became increasingly sophisticated, their thinkers began to consider how their societies might be better organized. In China, from the 5th century BCE, 3 radically different systems of governing emerged. Confucianism proposed a return to traditional values of virtue and respect, led by example. Daoism advocated the framing of laws in harmony with nature rather than by a ruler’s will, while Legalism imposed authoritarian rule, with harsh punishment for offenses.


In 380, Christianity became the Empire’s official religion, and Christian theologians could begin to formulate law based on Christian teachings.


For people lived in small farming settlements, the responsibility to avenge wrongs against individuals had rested on families. In cities, large numbers of unrelated people needed to find ways of living and working together peacefully. Laws were therefore invented to resolve disputes and prevent feuds.


Ur-Nammu’s code had a less brutal approach to retribution for violent crime. Each part of the body was given a value in weights of silver. This idea of financial penalty — a fine — rather than physical retaliation is closer to modern ideas on punishment.


There were no formal courthouses or lawyers. Accusers and accused, together with witnesses, appeared before an assembly of local people or city elders — or a panel of 3-6 judges in more serious cases — and provided oral or written testimony. Like today, participants swore a solemn oath to tell the truth.


Mosaic law is an ancient legal system set out in the Torah, which is the first 5 books of the Tanakh — the Jewish Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament. The Torah (“instruction”) contains a great number of laws, which are presented as given directly by God to Moses, founder and lawgiver of the Jewish nation.


The most important Commandment was the first: “You shall have no other gods before me.”


Mosaic law was perceived as part of a covenant, a formal agreement, between God and the Israelites. It was believed that God promised to protect the Israelites and give them the land of Canaan if they obeyed his laws. “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.”


The 5 books of the Torah:

  • Genesis: creation and the Israelites’ ancestry from Adam and Eve.
  • Exodus: escape from Egypt and laws, including the Ten Commandments.
  • Leviticus: laws on sacrifice, priesthood, and ritual purity.
  • Numbers: the Israelites’ 40 years in the desert and a census of the tribes.
  • Deuteronomy: laws on worship, crime, and punishment, delivered by Moses before his death.

The First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me,” could be read to mean that other deities may be worshipped, as long as Yahweh is honored above them.


Once Judaism became monotheistic, the earlier stories of Israelites worshipping Ashram and Baal were interpreted as examples of regression from Mosaic law. The Babylonian exile was now seen as divine punishment for this.


To break a law was to commit an offense against a fellow human, who might choose to pardon the offender. But breaking a law in the Torah was different: it was not just an offense against a fellow human, it was also a sin against God.


The scroll that contains the text of the Torah — including the laws given by God to Moses — is the most sacred object in every Jewish synagogue.


To justify his rebellion, the founder of the new Zhou dynasty appealed to a concept called tianming (“Mandate of Heaven”). Wu argued that a king could only govern if he was favored by heaven. He said that Shang kings had neglected their sacred duties and ruled corruptly, so heaven would transfer its mandate to another dynasty.


Zhou kings believed that they had a duty to rule justly or they risked losing heaven’s mandate.


Confucianism: People can be taught to be good. Rulers should govern by virtue and tradition.

Daoism: People should live in harmony with nature and the universe. Rulers should leave people alone.

Legalism: People are self-interested. Rulers should deter crime and keep people in order with punishments.


While Legalism had been effective in a time of constant warfare, Confucianism, which promoted social cohesion and loyalty to superiors, seemed more suitable when China was united and at peace.


Despite this, China remained an autocratic state, in which Confucianism was backed up by strict enforcement of the law — as one Chinese proverb says, the country is “Confucian on the outside, Legalist on the inside.” Confucius’s ideal society, where laws and punishments were unnecessary, was never achieved.


His more famous Republic had looked at an ideal state ruled by philosopher-kings with no need for laws. In contrast, Laws is concerned with the “second-best state,” where law is supreme.


So far as the civil law is concerned, slaves are not considered persons; but this is not the case according to natural law, because natural law regards all men as equal.


He wrote about 200 books, covering every branch of science and philosophy then known. Aristotle’s work endured in the Islamic world after the fall of Rome and was revived in the West by Thomas Aquinas.


Ulpian had an exalted view of Roman law, which he considered to be universal, rational, and based on what Aristotle described as “natural law.” Ulpian perceived law as “the art of goodness and fairness,” of which “we jurists are deservedly called the priests. For we cultivate the virtue of justice and claim awareness of what is good and fair.”


1240: The Talmud is put on trial in Paris and condemned for blasphemy. Every copy in France is burned.


Zakkai convinced Sanhedrin that animal sacrifice (the preserve of temple worship) could be replaced by prayer, study of the law, and benevolence. This was justified in the Talmud with a saying of God to King David: “A single day in which you sit and engage in Torah is preferable to the thousand burnt offerings that your son Solomon will offer before Me on the altar.”


The Gemara is a vast body of diverse material that explores the meaning of the laws outlined in the Mishnah and their application in daily life. Unlike most law codes, it often presents contradict rulings by rabbis side by side without deciding between them. Rather than fixing Jewish law, the Gemara enabled it to be studied and argued over, and has been described as the first interactive text.


The word “canon” derives from the Greek kanon, meaning a straight rod, or rule. Early canons were primarily concerned with theology and developed from debates about what people should believe.


Bishops issued canons to govern local church organization and ritual and their followers’ behavior, but primarily to dictate what people should believe. Doctrine had never been important in earlier religions, but Christianity was different, offering salvation to the faithful and damnation to those who held incorrect beliefs. Serious offenses such as heresy (opinions contrary to those of the Church leadership) and blasphemy (insulting the sacred) were disciplined by “anathema” — a punishment excommunicating, or expelling, the offender from the Christian community. Less serious offenses were punished with exclusion from communion.


In the 2nd century, the bishops assembled a fixed set of holy books to stand alongside the Mosaic Old Testament. This New Testament included only books and letters thought to have been written by apostles or their companions.


Although Christianity was not yet the state religion, under Constantine’s rule bishops assumed the rank, dress, and duties of civic authorities. The emperor, who was constantly attended by bishops, gave the bishop of Rome an imperial palace, latter called the Lateran Palace — the precursor to the Vatican. He also issued several edicts that gave the Church power to enforce its canons.

Constantine decreed that any Christian in a civil lawsuit with a fellow Christian could transfer the case from a secular court to the arbitration of a bishop.


Two dissenting bishops were exiled along with Arius, whose writings were burned.


Christianity finally became the state religion in 380, when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica, which ordered everyone in the empire to become Christian. Anyone who refused was judged to be “demented and insane.” The Church was now able to burn almost all heretical writings.


Now everyone in the Roman Empire except Jews had to obey canon law: they had to go to church, follow fasts, and believe in the Nicene Creed. Canon law would continue to develop alongside civil law as a separate legal system, eventually with its own courts, judges, and coercive penalties.


Canon law is a unique phenomenon because of the unique nature of the Church: a society of divine origin by its institution, yet human in its bearers of authority.


Islamic and Christian scholars also incorporated ideas from the Classical Greek philosophers, such as the concept of natural law, into their cultures. Gratian said that natural law is “the law common to all nations.”


Guilty parties often paid a fine or fled rather than face an ordeal. The innocent — believing that they would suffer no injury — submitted. The clergy who administered the ordeals understood this and did not wish the innocent to suffer, so they often cheated: “boiling” water would be merely hot, for example.


The Koran is the source of all Islamic law.

The Hadith (sayings and actions of Muhammad and his companions) supplement the Koran.

If the Koran and hadith do not provide the answer to a specific legal problem, judges may use qiyas (analogy) to see how the Koran or hadith approaches a similar problem.

Ijtihad (independent reasoning) allows other considerations such as maslahah (public welfare) to guide legal judgments.

Judges may also use ijma (agreement among legal scholars on points of Islamic law) to make rulings.


In the 10th century, scholars began to rule that all the main legal issues had been determined and that, at most, analogy might be needed to decide new matters in the light of old decisions.


The Islamic community had split in the 7th and 8th centuries over the question of the succession to Muhammad. The majority Sunni group adhered to the 5 caliphs, or heads of Islamic communities, who had followed the Prophet and then their Abbasid and Umayyad successors. The minority Shia held that the leadership should have gone through the line of Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law.


For most crimes, 2 male witnesses (or 1 male and 2 female) were required, but for adultery, 4 adult male witnesses were needed.

Partly because it could be difficult to find sufficient witnesses, many aspects of criminal law were transferred to state courts.


In Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, pressure has grown for Sharia law to have a role within the secular national legal framework. In extreme cases, such as the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, this has led to Sharia being taken to be the only source of legal legitimacy.


The canon law (law relating to the Christian Church) that developed in the centuries after Constantine had a piecemeal nature.


Henry’s reforms also laid the basis for common law (law applied to all).


The leaders of the baronial revolt force King John to sign a charter of rights, known as Magna Carta.

The Crown concedes that its powers are not absolute and need to have a basis in law.

The rights of individuals against arbitrary punishment by the Crown are established.


Serfs and peasants had no rights.


There was a contractual element to Medieval English kingship; the monarch’s authority was considered a contract with his people. His feudal vassals had a right to renounce their fealty if the king broke his side of the bargain.


Today, it is revered as a foundation document for modern democracy and the rule of law, but when it was issued, it was a conservative contract, primarily intended to protect the barons’ legal rights against royal encroachment.


Aquinas believed that both natural law and human law aimed at the common good, but sometimes this produced surprising — and to modern eyes unfounded — results. He deemed slavery, for example, to be in accordance with natural law, supporting a divinely ordained social hierarchy.


Papal bull: a sacred decree with the force of law.


The pressure for poor laws dated back in part to the aftermath of the Black Death of 1348-50. The plague killed 30-40% of people in England, leading to severe labor shortages. In 1351, the English Parliament passed the Stature of Laborers, which aimed to keep all able-bodied people in work at pre-plague wage levels. Laborers, however, saw the demand for labor as a way to move where they wanted and earn higher wages.

In 1388, Parliament countered with the Stature of Cambridge, which restricted the movement of workers, including beggars deemed to be “sturdy,” in order to keep them working cheaply for their overlords. In return, the stature imposed on local administrations the responsibility for providing some basic relief for the “impotent poor,” those deemed incapable of working.


Anyone wandering far from their home parish without a job was considered a “vagabond” and subject to harsh penalties, such as whipping, the severing of an ear, and eventual execution.

Further legislation in the 16th century added to the severity of punishment and forced vagabonds to take the first job on offer, however dreadful.


Despite the principle of charity at its core, the poor law system was a double-edged sword. It aimed to punish poverty as much as to support it and to be harsh enough to prevent a reliance on poor relief.


Bentham was particularly insistent that poor relief should be framed to discipline and punish slackers. Meanwhile, political economist David Ricardo argued that any kind of poor relief undermined “the iron law of wages,” in which wages were paid according to demand.


1992: The Vatican accepts that Galileo was correct in adopting the Copernican theory.


The High Court of Justice finds the king guilty of treason for waging war on his own people.


The trial of King Charles I was unprecedented in English (and European) history as the 1st time a monarch faced trial for treason. Charles I subscribed to the traditional doctrine of the divine right of kings, believing that the monarch was chosen by God and was therefore subject to no earthly authority (such as Parliament). He also argued that his power should be absolute and that only he should be allowed to pass laws.


There was no precedent in English law to try a king, so Dutch lawyer Isaac Dorislaus, who wrote the indictment, based it on an ancient Roman law that a military body (or government) had the right to overthrow a tyrant.


Charles repeatedly refused to accept the validity of the court, arguing that a parliament that had been purged of opposition could not claim to represent the people.


When Cromwell died in 1658, his son, Richard, succeeded him as Lord Protector, but soon resigned. In 1660, Charles II was restored to power. Those who had committed regicide by signing Charles I’s death warrant were put to death.


2000: Alabama is the last state to lift the ban on interracial marriage.


Despite enduring backbreaking work and poor conditions, slaves rarely rebelled. The prospect of rebellion, however, terrified the slaves’ masters, and as slave numbers grew, so the American colonies set up policing rules, or codes, to keep slaves under control. Virginia, the largest slave-owning colony, introduced its 1st slave stature in 1639, declaring that, “All persons except Negroes are to be provided with arms and ammunitions or be fined.”

**

Masters could enforce slave codes in many ways. Whipping, branding, and imprisonment were common. Killing was rare because slaves only had value while alive, although there was no punishment for a master who overstepped even that mark.


Even if a master were found guilty, often the best the slave could hope for was to be sold to someone kinder.


In NY and elsewhere, harsh penalties were imposed if slaves walked the streets at night or congregated together.


The right to copy.


Written in the summer of 1787, the Constitution of the US is the oldest national constitution. Ancient Greek city-states had their own written constitutions, but the US Constitution was the 1st to set out a framework for governing modern nations, and has inspired national constitutions ever since.


They had fought the Revolutionary War to challenge the tyranny of centralized power, so they were naturally nervous about a new central government. In fact, many states only agreed to ratify the Constitution if they could be sured they would have some guarantee of protection against the new government’s power.


Ratifying the Constitution had proved difficult. Many delegates had argued that it failed to protect political rights, such as freedom of religion and speech, and demanded that a Bill Of Rights be added before they agreed to sign. In a 1788 letter to Thomas Jefferson, Madison suggested that the Constitution aline, by creating a just and proper government, should be enough to guarantee the protection of fundamental rights. Gradually, however, Madison warmed to the idea of a Bill Of Rights, partly for pragmatic reasons and partly because he could see its merits.


Since then, remarkably few other amendments to the Bill have been added. Thousands have been proposed, but only 17 accepted, partly because of the system of checks and balances.


At first, it was even proposed that the president should be addressed as “Your Highness.”


With the development of the cloth industry and emergence of a new merchant class in the 15th century, widening prosperity had meant more people had a stake in how kings and lords operated, especially in the way they raised money from taxation.


The leading framers of the Constitution were highly educated men. They were deeply aware of new currents in philosophical and political thought that had developed in Europe during the Enlightenment, particularly the ideas of John Locke in England and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles Montesquieu in France. Both Locke and Rousseau argued strongly for people’s natural rights, while Montesquieu proposed a separation of legislative, judicial, and executive powers to prevent the despotism he abhorred in the French monarchy. Locke had maintained there must be a “social contract,” whereby people, who are by nature free and equal, agree to be rule and have some of their choices limited in order to live harmoniously with others. Those who rule, however, must protect the people’s rights and promote the public good.


Many considered elections only as a means to an end, a way of keeping government in check rather than part of some great democratic ideal.

Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution, argued that it was a republic they were creating, not a democracy.


The Constitution with all its faults was the very best they could obtain.


The Estates General comprised 3 groups, or estates — the clergy, the nobility, and the people — and Louis insisted that each group had a single vote. This meant that the 2 elite estates, the clergy and the nobility, would always outvote the people.


On June 17, 1789, the enraged “Third Estate,” the people, declared a separate National Assembly to make laws themselves.


All men are equal and no man has a right to rule over any other.

But men may choose the give the power to rule to the monarch and the government.

So the monarch and the government rule on behalf of the nation and only by the consent of the people.


The new philosophy of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire challenged the idea of the rule of a monarch by divine right, asserting a law of the rights of men, derived not from religious authority but by rational thought.


These were French free men over the age of 25 who paid a certain level of tax (in effect, property owners). Women, poor men, and slaves were “passive” citizens.


The Nuremberg Laws lay down the Nazi policy of German citizenship, effectively defining Jews as “nonpersons.”


Despite the good intentions of documents such as France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man, all men were not yet seen as equals, even by the law — and women were certainly not regarded as deserving of equal rights.


1857: Chief Justice Roger Taney rules that the word “citizens” in the Constitution does not refer to black people.


Although the US Constitution provided for the Supreme Court to exist, it did not codify (write down in law) its power and prerogatives. Rather, the Court’s powers have, over time, been defined by its own rulings. One such power is that of judicial review.

Judicial review allows the Court to decide whether a legislative act (produced by Congress), executive act (produced by the president), or judicial act (produced by a lower court) violates the Constitution.


A sheaf of arrows held in the eagle’s left talon symbolizes war, showing that the nation is always in readiness for war.


It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.


During his tenure as chief justice, he also presided over other important innovations. One example was the shift to an Opinion of the Court presented as a majority decision, in contrast to the former method of seriatim decisions, in which each judge delivered their own separate opinion.


This case set the precedent that the killing of an innocent, even in the event of extreme hunger, has no defense in English law.


The case was heard by 4 courts. Each court held that the land had not been owned by the Indigenous Peoples, but for different reasons. The trial judge used what is now acknowledged to be racist language, saying that “as heathens and barbarians,” the Indigenous Peoples had no right of ownership.


This set the “rule of reason” precedent, whereby only those restraints of trade that are deemed “unreasonable” are considered a violation of the Sherman Act. Reasonable restraint of trade would apply to a company that had created a monopoly through building a superior product or technology; such action would not break antitrust laws.


Under Bismarck, newly unified Germany adopted militarism — the idea that a state should use its armies to aggressively advance its national interests.


Although The Hague Conventions were the 1st multilateral treaties to clarify the rules of war, they were seriously flawed. In particular, neither of the laid out specific penalties for states that violated them. Until the creation of the ICC in 2002, it was up to individual states to prosecute for breaches of the Conventions, but states might be unable or unwilling to prosecute.


A writ of habeas corpus: an order to bring a person under arrest before a judge or court to decide whether the detention is lawful.


At first, people were hostile; they felt that uniformed officers telling them what to do was too much state interference in their daily lives. However, as crime levels across London began to fall, public opinion started to shift.


The rules of The Hague Conventions are now considered to be binding on all states, even if they have not directly signed up to them. Although the Conventions had been blatantly flouted during both world wars, the international community recognized the value of international systems of law.


The Joint Stock Companies Act of 1856, championed by Lowe, made limited liability available to any company with 7 shareholders. It also, as importantly, helped raise levels of confidence in corporate activities.


The free market is unable to prevent the development of monopolies and trusts.

The government must have a powerful agency to prevent anti-competitive practices.


All members are obliged to abide by the council’s rulings, but there is a crucial exception. At Yalta, Stalin insisted that each of the 5 permanent members had the power of veto. Roosevelt was reluctant to accept this at first, but it did fix a fatal flaw of the League of Nations, which could theoretically order its members to act in defiance of their own governments.


The ICJ’s purpose is to settle disputes between nation-states, but cases can only go ahead when the states involved consent to the Court having jurisdiction to consider the dispute.


More and more people began to call for the new UN to be transformed into a universal federation of states with the power to control arms. But any such vision rapidly evaporated in the postwar descent into a new “Cold War” between the USSR, driven by the Lenin’s vision of the Bolshevik World State, and the US-led West, which believed in a world dominated by democratic nation-states and global capitalism.

The UN became accepted as the best compromise. In many ways, it turned out to be more of a success than commentators had feared, and it has provided a forum that has given a voice to a lot of rising nations.


The UDHR is not a legal document and, unlike a treaty, countries are not obliged to follow its terms as a matter of international law. Rather, it is a declaration of principles about what rights ought to be protected globally. The UDHR was a response to the tragedy of WW2, during which “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.”


Many analysts distinguish between 1st- and 2nd-generation human rights. The former relate to liberty and political expression. Sometimes called natural rights, they include the right to life, freedom of speech, and a fair trial.

2nd-generation rights largely tend to deal with economic and social rights, such as to food, housing, and healthcare. These rights impose upon governments a duty to promote them — but whether they are enacted depends on the availability of resources.

3rd-generation human rights go beyond basic civil and social rights and include the right to a healthy environment and the right to participate in cultural heritage. They are not yet included in the UDHR. Neither, explicitly, are the right not to fight and the abolition of the death penalty.


Building on that vision, Europe today has 2 fundamental international organizations: the Council of Europe and the EU. The aim of the EU is to promote peace and prevent the resurgence of nationalism by means of integration of its member states. It is based on the rule of law, and the ECJ plays an important role in ensuring that EU regulations are observed and applied consistently in every EU country.


The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. The pooling of coal and steel industries would mean that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable but materially impossible. It would be the first concrete foundation of a European federation, indispensable to the preservation of peace.


Rather than “high authorities,” the new executives were “commissions.”


The Bill Of Rights guarantees the personal liberties of all American citizens.

Vague drafting makes the interpretation of some Amendments unclear, particularly the Fourth, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure.

The exclusionary rule says that evidence obtained by an unlawful search or seizure is inadmissible in criminal trials.


In this case, rape and kidnapping convictions were overturned because the accused’s constitutional rights — to remain silent and avoid self-discrimination and to legal counsel — had been ignored.

The exclusionary rule has always been controversial. The obvious criticism was that the guilty might go unpunished — there was no question that Weeks was guilty. Defenders of the ruling said that, without the exclusionary rule, the Constitution itself was violated. More practically, it was in the wider interests of American justice to use the rule to hold officers to the highest standards of evidence.


The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free.


1920: The US gives all women the right to vote.

1928: Universal suffrage in the UK is finally granted to all men and women aged over 21.

2015: Women in Saudi Arabia are granted the right to vote.


The constitution’s aim was “the abolition of the exploitation of men by men, the entire abolition of the division of the people into classes, the suppression of exploiters, the establishment of a socialist society.” An alliance of workers and peasants would rule the country through soviets — councils of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies that had sprung up all over Russia.

Initially, soviets had been open to all, but the constitution excluded the bourgeoisie from soviets and all other organs of government.


The treaties remade the map of Europe. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires were dismantled; the former Russian empire, now convulsed by civil war, was dramatically reduce. Eight new nation-states were also created: Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Yugoslavia.


Wilson’s vision for Europe was undermined by the impossibility of creating coherent nation-states out of multiethnic peoples and by other Allies’ political imperatives.


Tort law deals with compensation for harm to people’s right to safe products, a clean environment, and protection of their property and wider economic interests.


Those with one-eighth Jewish blood or less were deemed German and citizens of the Reich; those with three-quarters or entirely Jewish blood were stripped of all rights. Those in between were Reich citizens but not members of the German race.


They were the first international military tribunals of their kind, and they defined 3 new types of crime: crimes against peace, including starting an unprovoked war; war crimes, such as breaking the international rules of war as set out in The Hague Conventions; and crimes against humanity, including mass murder, forced labor, and religious persecution.


The Paris Peace Conference established the League of Nations with the avowed aim “to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security.” The idea was to solve disputes between countries before they erupted into open warfare.

WW1 marked the end of the age of empire. Instead, the victors wanted to build a world of independent nations coming together in open forums rather than through secret deals made behind closed doors, as had been the case in the 19th century. In this way, the victors hoped they could de-escalate tensions and disarm.


Peace is only secured if the major powers are always involved in the process.

The major powers must have a permanent place in the UNSC.

The UN has had some success in maintaining international peace.

A veto option means powers don’t have to act against their will, which reduces the risk of conflict.


There are also nonmembers such as the Vatican and Palestine, which can participate but have only observer status.


Under the treaty, the US, UK, and USSR can veto treaty amendments. Also, a majority, including all 3 original parties, must approve any amendment.


Yet the treaty cannot come into effect until it is not only signed, but ratified, by all 44 members of the Conference, including all the nuclear powers.


The Jim Crow laws of the Southern US came into force in the 1870s and 1880s and were every bit as racially divisive as South Africa’s apartheid laws.

In theory, black people had the same rights under the Constitution as white people, but the Jim Crow laws gave racial segregation legal force.


The case went to the Supreme Court, which, in 1896, ruled that state governments could indeed separate people racially, as long as all races were given equal facilities. It was a hammer blow. This “separate but equal” principle gave states freedom to continue segregation, and this division lasted for almost 60 years.


The Fifth Amendment makes it clear that no one “shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.”


Those who are protected are cut off not just from their past but from everything except immediate family. Granted new identities, spirited away from everywhere familiar, their lives are turned upside down. In effect, the price of their safety is a double life — an elaborate lie rigorously enforced.


DNA can be sampled from saliva, skin, blood, hair, or cells. To be of value, however, it is essential that both the sampling and analysis are performed to exacting standards.


Most everyday objects carry tiny traces of multiple people, and it can be almost impossible to distinguish the DNA of those in frequent contact.


The agreement’s stated aims are free trade and the abolition of high tariffs, which penalize imports.

The WTO becomes the most powerful legislative and judicial body in the world.

However, the WTO’s goal of trade liberalization is consistently hampered by competing national interests.


Trade negotiations are notoriously complex and slow moving — China, for example, only signed up to the WTO in 2001, after 15 years of talks.


Personnel landmines are cheap. On the other hand, getting rid of them is dangerous and expensive. An APL bought for $3 can cost $1K to remove.


Although the UK had twice gone to war with China to protect the lucrative opium trade, it had been the first county (in 1868) to pass a modern law restricting the sale of drugs and poisons.


The law decriminalized drug use but did not legalize it. Drug use remains an administrative violation in Portugal, and distributing and selling drugs is still a serious crime. But possession and use is seen as a public health problem, not a criminal offense.


During the Cold War, tensions between the USSR and the US meant that there was no consensus at the UN on tackling international crimes. It was only after the end of the Cold War that the idea of a permanent international criminal court was examined.


Crimes against humanity differ from war crimes in that their target is civilian, not soldiers.


If a crime prosecutable by the ICC is committed, there are 3 ways to bring a case.

  1. The government of the country in which that crime is committed refers the case to the ICC for prosecution.
  2. The prosecutor of the ICC can authorize an investigation into a situation in a country that his signed up to the ICC.
  3. The UNSC instructs the ICC to investigate the case.

The ICC only prosecutes someone when a country is unwilling or unable to do so. This is known as the complementarity principle, but it has been criticized as skewed, because it is easier for richer countries with more developed and stable legal systems to carry out prosecutions than those where, for example, the legal system may have collapsed.


To date, the US, Russia, and China have refused to join the ICC. Because these countries are permanent members of the UNSC, there is no effective way to prosecute any crimes committed by them on their own territory, because they can simply veto any UNSC Resolution involving the ICC.


The majority of cases that have come before the ICC are from Africa, which has led to the Court being criticized as a neocolonial institution and some countries threatening to withdraw from the ICC.