Principle

Lex talionis appears in the Code of Hammurabi and in the Hebrew scriptures, limiting revenge to equivalence: the harm done, no mor...

From the Stoics and Cicero through Aquinas to Grotius, natural law theory holds that binding rules flow from reason and the nature...

Parliamentary sovereignty, classically formulated by A V Dicey, holds that Acts of Parliament are the supreme law, no parliament c...

Stare decisis binds courts to follow the reasoning of higher courts in later similar cases, generating predictability and equal tr...

The presumption of innocence places the burden of proof squarely on the prosecution to the criminal standard, requiring nothing of...

The rule against double jeopardy bars retrial after acquittal or, in most systems, after conviction, rooted in Roman law and Magna...

Burden of proof has two faces, the burden of production, who must adduce evidence first, and the burden of persuasion, who loses i...

The maxim nemo tenetur seipsum accusare grew from the struggles against ecclesiastical inquisitions and Star Chamber into the Fift...

Descended from Magna Carta's law of the land clause, due process entered the American Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and spread t...

Judicial review, power of courts to refuse effect to unconstitutional acts, was asserted for the Supreme Court by Chief Justice Ma...

Articulated by Montesquieu and embedded in the American Constitution with checks and balances, separation of powers aims to preven...

The Sixth Amendment promises the assistance of counsel, which the Supreme Court in 1963 in Gideon made binding on states for felon...

Proclaimed in August 1789 at the heart of the French Revolution, the declaration announced that men are born and remain free and e...

Nullum crimen sine lege, nulla poena sine lege, forbids retroactive crimes and punishments, requiring clear prior statutes interpr...

German constitutional doctrine built proportionality into a three step test, legitimate aim, suitability of means, necessity as le...

Drafted after World War II by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt and adopted in Paris in December 1948, the declaration set ...

The 1945 to 1946 trial of the major Nazi organizations affirmed that individuals, including heads of state, bear criminal responsi...

A handful of norms, the prohibitions of genocide, torture, slavery, and aggression foremost, are ranked peremptory: no treaty may ...

From piracy's any court may try rule, doctrine extended universal jurisdiction to genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, a...

Aristotle argued that it is better for the law to rule than any individual, and English lawyers from Bracton to Coke insisted that...