The Magna Carta is probably the most famous British document, composed in Latin in 1215 to record the agreement between king John and his barons regarding the king’s responsibilities and the rights of the people. Here several clauses are excerpted from the 1225 version published under king Henry III, with references given to the clauses in the 1215 version. These clauses relate to women’s incomes, the right to basic maintenance, standardisation of weights and measures, the problems caused by obstructions in rivers, each person’s right to a swift and fair trial, and freedom of movement for foreign traders.

The author makes the case for a new understanding of the role of consent in international law. She begins by noting that the question of consent should be as central to international law as it is in other fields of law because legal norms give rise to power relations and impose constraints upon those to whom they apply, and those in power want these constraints to be accepted. Yet, the question of consent was, as the chapter claims, never raised in the classical era when State sovereignty made it possible for States to adopt international norms without their subjects’ consent. With the Enlightenment, however, the people’s consent through representation became the foundation of domestic law. Yet, most of the time, representation is, according to the author, formal and serves to justify the law as if it were produced by the general will. Because international law reflects the fickle concurrence of States’ wills, the world community’s law does not rely on popular consent. The world community is confronted with difficult challenges, and it needs, more than ever, norms that can meet this moment.