A few written instruments have changed what law can do. These ten are among the most consequential.
Legal change usually arrives slowly, but occasionally a single document resets the terms. The Napoleonic Code of 1804 replaced a patchwork of regional custom with one systematic text that ordinary people could in principle read, and its structure was copied across Europe and Latin America. The Nuremberg trials of 1945 and 1946 established that individuals could be held personally responsible for acts committed on behalf of a state, and that following orders was not a complete answer. The post-war decades produced the densest run of these. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 set out a list of entitlements without binding anyone to them; the two covenants of 1966 made much of it enforceable for states that ratified. The Refugee Convention of 1951 defined who counts as a refugee and forbade returning people to persecution. The Rome Statute of 1998 created a permanent international criminal court, which several major states have still not joined.
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Play it insteadAnswer: B. 1948
Why: It is a declaration rather than a treaty, so it does not bind states directly. Two covenants adopted in 1966 turned much of it into binding obligations for those that ratified them.
Answer: A. Held individuals personally responsible for crimes committed on behalf of a state
Why: Acting under superior orders was rejected as a complete defence. The tribunal's principles fed directly into later international criminal courts.
Answer: D. The Rome Statute
Why: It was adopted in 1998 and the court began work at The Hague in 2002. Several large states have never joined it.
Answer: C. It set out civil law as a single systematic written code
Why: It replaced a patchwork of regional customs in France and was exported widely by conquest and imitation. Many civil law systems still follow its structure.
Answer: B. The Bill of Rights
Why: They were ratified in 1791, four years after the Constitution itself. Several states had made their ratification conditional on such a list being added.
Answer: A. Fled their country owing to a well-founded fear of persecution
Why: It also sets out non-refoulement, the rule against returning people to a place where they face persecution. A 1967 protocol removed its original limits to events in Europe before 1951.
Answer: D. The seventeenth century
Why: The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 tightened procedures that had existed in weaker form for centuries. Parliaments have suspended it in wartime on several occasions since.
Answer: C. Strasbourg
Why: The convention was drafted under the Council of Europe, which is a separate body from the European Union. The EU's own court sits in Luxembourg.
Answer: B. The Additional Protocols of 1977
Why: The protocols extended protection to civil wars and to civilians in occupied territory. The 1949 conventions themselves replaced earlier texts going back to 1864.
Answer: A. That the ruler is not above the law
Why: Most of its clauses dealt with specific baronial grievances and have long since been repealed. Only a handful remain on the statute book in England and Wales.
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