Jones v. Ministry of Interior of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Case No. [2006] UKHL 26. At <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldjudgmt.htm>.

House of Lords, June 14, 2006.

The House of Lords handed down judgment in Jones v. Ministry of Interior of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on June 14, 2006. The case concerns an action in damages brought by Jones and three other applicants, all UK citizens, falsely accused of involvement in bombings in Riyadh in 2001 and 2002. The four allege that they were repeatedly tortured while in prison in Saudi Arabia and that they suffered severe psychological and physical harm as a result. Seeking aggravated and exemplary damages from Saudi Arabia's Ministry of the Interior and the Saudi officials allegedly responsible, the applicants filed claims of, inter alia, torture, assault and battery, trespass to the person, and unlawful imprisonment. In the proceedings before the Court of Appeal, Saudi Arabia claimed immunity on its own behalf and on that of its officials. The Court of Appeal agreed with the former but denied the latter; all the involved parties appealed the decision. The House of Lords agreed with Saudi Arabia by upholding state immunity in civil proceedings brought against a state and its officials in a different country for alleged torture.

Decision Concerning the Maastricht Treaty. 1998 Ugeskrift for Retsvaesen, H 800.

Supreme Court of Denmark, April 6, 1998.

In this case the Danish Supreme Court decided that the ratification and the incorporation into Danish law of the Maastricht Treaty creating the European Union are consistent with the Danish Constitution of 1953. It also reserved the right for Danish courts to review Community decisions for consistency with the Act on Denmark's accession to the EC Treaty. This decision is of vital importance to Denmark's relationship to the European Community (EC) and to the claims of direct effect and priority of EC law over national constitutions.

Jefferson’s importance as a political theorist tends to be overshadowed by his success as diplomat and statesman. The practical accomplishments of his forty years in public office often obscure the breadth and consistency of the philosophy behind all of his official conduct, and his tremendous influence in formulating and disseminating the principles on which the modern democratic state rests is too often forgotten. His genius consisted, not so much in the originality of his political ideas, as in his ability to select from the conflicting theories of his day all that could be practically applied, and to transmute a diverse intellectual heritage into a working philosophy of the state. Against the sovereign whose command is law, Jefferson sets up a legal theory seeking justice as well as order, and by which ruler and subject are alike bound. It is a theory which transcends national lines, recognizing that isolation, in any rigorous sense, means stagnation and death, both to the individual and to the state. So when Jefferson asks for “peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all nations–entangling alliances with none,” only the second phrase is negative, and it means no more than it says. Peace and commerce are both relations external to the individual state; and both presuppose for their maintenance some form of international organization–some system of international law. Both Jefferson’s writings and his official acts testify to his belief that the intercourse of nations must be governed by some body of legal rules.