The rule of law is a term often used but difficult to define. A commonly heard saying is that the rule of law means governing the law, not men. But what is meant by «a government of law, not men»? No account of the rule of law is complete if it does not mention how this ideal is frowned upon. The glowing history of the rule of law in the works of thinkers such as Aristotle, Locke, Dicey, Hayek and Fuller was joined by opponents of legality such as Plato (in The Statesman), Thomas Hobbes (at least if the rule of law is to take us beyond the rule of law) and Carl Schmitt in 1923 (in his attack on parliamentarism and the liberal hypothesis, that rules may prevail even in conditions of endemic crises). In the United Kingdom, the rule of law is a long-standing principle of how the country is governed, dating back to the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Bill of Rights of 1689. [26] [49] [50] In the 19th century, A. V. Dicey, a constitutionalist and jurist, wrote about the two pillars of the British Constitution in his classic Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885); These two pillars are the rule of law and parliamentary sovereignty. [51] The International Rule of Law Network (INPROL) is a network of more than 3,000 legal practitioners from 120 countries and 300 organizations working on rule of law issues in post-conflict and developing countries from a policy, practice, and research perspective. INPROL hat seinen Sitz am US Institute of Peace (USIP) in Zusammenarbeit mit dem US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, der Strategic Police Matters Unit der Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa (OSZE), dem Center of Excellence for Police Stability Unit und der William and Marry School of Law in den Vereinigten Staaten.

[86] Affiliates include the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Folke Bernadotte Academy, the International Bar Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Police Women, the International Association of Corrections and Corrections Affairs, the International Court Administration Association, the International Security Sector Advisory Team of the Centre for democratic control of Geneva`s health. Armed Forces, World Association of Women Forensic Experts (WAWFE) and International Institute for Law and Human Rights. Sometimes situations can be resolved and disputes resolved through informal social norms rather than through officially promulgated and enforced positive law (Ellickson 1994). Opinions differ as to whether this should be seen as something quite different from the rule of law. On the one hand, it looks like a real alternative, and there is little to be gained by adapting its desirable characteristics, such as they are, to the requirements of the rule of law. On the other hand, it has something in common with customary conceptions of law and ideas of the rule of law (such as Hayek`s in 1973), which attempt to separate themselves from enactment and legislation. It is also sometimes said that the rule of law works best when what is applied in a society can be mapped to the standards of fairness and common sense of its members. This makes society`s participation in the integrity and preservation of the law more likely (Cooter, 1997). The closer this mapping gets, the less investment is needed in formal promulgation: ordinary know-how can become a reliable guide to legal knowledge. However, you have to be very careful with this.

Modern law is inevitably technical in a way that far exceeds the possibilities of intuitive understanding (Weber 1968 [1922]: 882-95). The best one can hope for is some sort of occasional consonance between enacted law and informal agreements, and the sporadic nature of this may increase rather than reduce unpredictability. There can be no free society without law administered by an independent judiciary. If one person can be allowed to determine for himself what the law is, every person can. It means chaos first, then tyranny. «. Most of the content of the rule of law can be summed up in two points: the rule of law applies not only within national regimes, but increasingly between them, but in this area its use remains under-theorized (for a useful discussion, see Crawford 2003). Much of the work that has been done on the rule of international law simply uncritically adopts the view of those at the national level that the rule of law requires determination, clarity and predictability (see Chesterman 2008).

However, this can be misunderstood when we talk about states and not individuals as legal subjects (Waldron 2011b). States are in a much better position than men and women in society to be informed of their legal requirements because they are parties to the treaties and practices that govern international law. (Perhaps, however, this point is not also true when we consider the dark depths of customary international law.) Getting involved in the company, subjecting human behavior to rules, implies. A confession to the opinion that man. A responsible actor able to understand and follow the rules. Any deviation from the principles of the internal morality of law is an affront to human dignity as a responsible actor. To judge his actions according to unpublished or retroactive laws, or to order him to act which is impossible, means, . Their indifference to its power of self-determination. (Fuller 1964:162) In 1215, Archbishop Stephen Langton gathered the barons in England and forced King John and future rulers and magistrates back to the rule of law, preserving the ancient liberties of Magna Carta in exchange for high taxes. [21] [22] This basis for a constitution was incorporated into the United States Constitution. However, this is not the position obtained.

According to Joseph Raz (1977) and others, one cannot understand the rule of law unless one already and independently understands what law is and what evils the law is likely to cause (which the rule of law seeks to prevent). For this reason, legality represents a particular set of concerns about law that have arisen in our civilization. The fact that these concerns are undoubtedly moral in nature (even if they are not overarching moral concerns) means that, according to Raz, it is preferable to separate them from the legal concept itself, lest we introduce a moral element into that concept. The International Development Law Organization (IDLO) is an intergovernmental organization focused on the promotion of the rule of law and development. It strives to empower individuals and communities to claim their rights and provides governments with the know-how to make them a reality. [82] It helps emerging and middle-income countries strengthen their legal capacity and rule of law framework for sustainable development and economic opportunity. [83] It is the only intergovernmental organization with an exclusive rule of law mandate and has worked in more than 170 countries around the world. [84] As we saw in Hayek`s discussion (1973), the other side of the coin is the denigration of legislation, precisely because its adoption seems to represent the rule of powerful officials, clearly and indisputably. Legislation is a matter of will. The legislative process produces laws simply because a group of people in an assembly decides that a particular law should be created. And this is done by the very men – powerful politicians – in whose power the rule of law is supposed to be an alternative. Despite these fundamental characteristics, however, there has never been a generally accepted or even systematic formulation of the rule of law (but not for lack of attempts on the part of jurists and political philosophers).

The idea that the law should help to channel and restrict the exercise of official authority can be interpreted in different ways; These differences are particularly evident over time and between different communities. No one doubts that legislation can sometimes undermine the rule of law, for example by purporting to remove the legal responsibility of a number of official acts or exclude the possibility of judicial review of executive actions. But this is not a problem with the legislation as such; This is a concern about the content of some regulations. Moreover, rule by judges can sometimes be seen as precisely the type of male rule that the rule of law is intended to replace (see Waldron 2002: 142-3 and 147-8). A good definition of the rule of law that has an almost universal acceptance of states In China, members of the school of legalism argued in the 3rd century BC. for using law as an instrument of governance, but they promoted «rule by law» as opposed to «rule of law,» meaning they placed aristocrats and the emperor above the law. [15] In contrast, the Taoist Huang Lao school rejected legal positivism in favor of a natural law to which even the ruler would be subject. [16] East Asian cultures are influenced by two schools of thought, Confucianism, which advocated good governance as the rule of benevolent and virtuous rulers, and legalism, which advocated strict adherence to the law.