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In 2015 we celebrate the 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta.

The Magna Carta is the most important document you may never have heard of.

You may not have read it, but its legacy has inspired liberty and freedom in many countries across the world today.

The grant of the Magna Carta 800 years ago has led to the idea that liberty and freedom should be protected by the law.

It showed us it was possible to build societies based on the rule of law and respect for the liberty of all people.

"Magna Carta has lived in the hearts and minds of our people. It is an incantation of the spirit of liberty. Whatever its text or meaning, it has become the talisman of a society in which tolerance and democracy reside, a society in which each man and woman has and is accorded his or her unique dignity, a society in which power and privilege do not produce tyranny and oppression".

The Honourable Sir Gerard Brennan, Former Chief Justice of Australia, An Address on the Occasion of the Naming of Magna Carta Place

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In 2015 we celebrate the 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta is the most important document you may never have heard of. You may not have read it, but its legacy has inspired liberty and freedom in many countries across the world today.

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The Magna Carta Legacy website celebrates important legal ideas found in the world's most famous legal document, the Magna Carta! The website explains key ideas from the Magna Carta and contains international case studies which trace how ideas from the Magna Carta are recognised in legal systems today.

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Central to the wheel and the rule of law is the concept that no one is above the law - it is applied and to both the government and citizens. This means that all people, regardless of their status, race, culture, religion, or any other attribute, should be ruled equally by

Beyond this, the of the wheel illustrates a number of interrelated principles that reflect the rule of law in Australia, such as the presumption of innocence, and fair and prompt trials.

These principles can be considered essential elements that contribute to maintaining the rule of law. Without these, the wheel would fail to turn and Australia's rule of law would not continue to be upheld and maintained.

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Central to the wheel and the rule of law is the concept that no one is above the law - it is applied and to both the government and citizens.

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What is the convention?

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is an international human rights treaty between the 47 states that are members of the Council of Europe (CoE) - not to be confused with the European Union.

Governments signed up to the ECHR have made a legal commitment to abide by certain standards of behaviour and to protect the basic rights and freedoms of people. It is a treaty to protect the rule of law and promote democracy in European countries.

How was the European Convention on Human Rights created?

The idea for the creation of the ECHR was proposed in the early 1940s while the Second World War was still raging across Europe. It was developed to ensure that governments would never again be allowed to dehumanise and abuse people's rights with impunity, and to help fulfil the promise of 'never again'.

In May 1948 after the war had ended, the 'Congress of Europe' was held in The Hague, a gathering of over 750 delegates which included leaders from civil society groups, academia, business and religious groups, trade unions, and leading politicians from across Europe such as Winston Churchill, François Mitterand and Konrad Adenauer.

In his speech to the Congress, Churchill stated:

"In the centre of our movement stands the idea of a Charter of Human Rights, guarded by freedom and sustained by law."
Winston Churchill, (The Hague, 7th May 1948)

It was from this gathering that the ECHR began to take shape. The assembly proposed a list of rights to be protected, and also drew a number of articles directly from the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was formally drafted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg during the summer of 1949. Over 100 members of parliament from across Europe assembled to draft the charter. The United Kingdom was the very first nation to ratify the convention in March of 1951.

"We desire a Charter of Human Rights guaranteeing liberty of thought, assembly and expression as well as the right to form political opposition. We desire a Court of Justice with adequate sanctions for the implementation of this Charter."

From 'Message to Europeans', (The Hague, 10th May 1948)

The ECHR came into full effect on the 3rd September 1953. It was intended to be a simple, flexible roundup of universal rights, whose meaning could grow and adapt to society's changing needs over time. Not only were ordinary people to be protected from abuse by the state, but duties were to be placed on those states to protect individuals. It has been hugely important in raising standards and increasing awareness of human rights across CoE member states, and beyond.

What is the European Court of Human Rights?

Courtroom of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)

The creation of the ECHR led to the establishment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It was set up in 1959 and is based in Strasbourg, France. The Court exists to safeguard the ECHR, providing a forum for people who believe their rights have been denied, allowing them to have their cases heard.

Judgements of the Court legally bind countries to stand by its rulings. The resulting case-law makes the Convention a powerful 'living instrument', whose decisions have influenced the laws and practices of governments across Europe.

READ MORE ON HOW THE ECHR MAKES US ALL SAFER
How does the ECHR relate to the UK's Human Rights Act?

Until 1998, the only way UK citizens could bring a legal challenge relying on their rights under the ECHR was to go the European Court of Human Rights, and this process could be lengthy and expensive. The Human Rights Act (HRA) allows the rights guaranteed by the ECHR to be enforced in UK courts - increasing everyone's access to justice in this country.

The Human Rights Act brings the ECHR into British Law, meaning that judicial decisions on human rights cases can be reached within the domestic legal system, building up a body of specifically domestic case law to refer to in the future.

The HRA has two parts: the second part contains most (but not all) of the rights from the ECHR, taken word for word. The first part sets out how those rights are to be applied and enforced. To find out more about how the HRA affects law making and public authority decision taking, and how it can be enforced, please read our Human Rights Act FAQ.

Successive governments have expressed an intention to repeal the HRA and replace it with a less protective Bill of Rights. While there are no active plans to do so that we are aware of, this remains a threat. Please sign our petition to Save The Act.
Take action
18 Articles of European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)

Signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights

Article 1 - obligation to respect human rights
The state has the responsibility to respect every individual's human rights, as set out in the Convention itself.

Article 2 - right to life
We all have the right to life, and not be killed by another person.

The state must protect people's lives by enforcing the law, protecting those in danger, and safeguard against accidental deaths.

Article 3 - prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
Nobody, under any circumstances, can torture or abuse anyone else. We should never be treated in ways that cause us serious physical or mental suffering.

Article 4 - prohibition of slavery and forced labour
Nobody should ever be made a slave or forced to work against their will.
There are minor exceptions to this article, for example in some cases it is legal to require someone to work in if they're in prison or the military services.

Article 5 - right to liberty and security
We can only be detained in certain circumstances, for example if we've been convicted by a court, or if we're considered to be a danger to ourselves.

Article 6 - right to a fair trial
We have the right to a fair and public trial, within a reasonable amount of time, by an independent and unbiased judge.

If charged with an offence we should be assumed innocent until proven guilty.

Article 7 - no punishment without law
All crimes should be clearly defined by the law. We can only be found guilty of a criminal offence if there was a law against it at the time the act was committed. Once found guilty of a crime we cannot later be given a heavier sentence.

Article 8 - right to respect privacy and family life
This right exists to protect four things: our family life, our home, our private life, and our correspondence.

We have the right to live with our family and our loved ones.

Respect for the home guards against intrusion into where we live, or to protect us being forced from where we live without good reason.

Respect for private life protects our personal freedoms, including respect for our sexuality, the right not to be placed under unlawful surveillance, or for us not to have personal information spread about us against our will.

Respect for correspondence allows for us to communicate with others freely and in full privacy.

Article 9 - freedom of thought, conscience and religion
We all have the right to hold religious and other beliefs. We also have the right to change these beliefs when we choose. We should be free to worship and express our beliefs both in public and private spaces.

Article 10 - freedom of expression
We have the right for us to hold our own opinions, to express our views and ideas, and to share information with others.

This article can protect our right to express views that some may find unpopular or offensive.

Article 11 - freedom of assembly and association
We have the right to join with others to protect our common interests, to form trade unions political parties.

Importantly this article also exists to protect our right to hold meetings, and to assemble in groups to peacefully protest.

Article 12 - right to marry
We have the right marry who we want to, and to start a family.

Article 13 - right to an effective remedy
If our rights are violated then we must be able to challenge this through legal means. The state must make arrangement for this, and there may be compensation for any damage caused to us.

Article 14 - prohibition of discrimination
Our rights should never be denied to us due to any form of discrimination, whether due to our 'sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status'.

Article 15 - derogation in time of emergency
A state can choose to ignore some specific rights in the ECHR at a time of war or other emergency threatening the life of the nation, but any removal of rights should be limited to those absolutely required by the situation. A state must always make sure these measures are consistent with its obligations under International Law.

Article 16 - restriction on political activity of non-nationals
A state can restrict the political activity of non-nationals, but this does not apply to the nationals of EU member states when in an EU country.

Article 17 - prohibition of abuse of rights
Nothing in the ECHR allows for any state, group or individual to destroy the rights and freedoms that the convention protects.

Article 18 - limitation on use of restriction of rights
The restrictions allowed by the convention should not be applied for any other purpose than those explained in the convention itself.

The Convention also contains a list of protocols which make amendments to the original articles. These relate to the right to property, education, free elections and many other issues. To read more detail about the ECHR take a look at the Council of Europe's webpages for PDF versions of the Convention and Protocol.

Glossary of terms 

Article - the substance of a treaty or agreement.

Council of Europe - The Council of Europe (CoE) was formed in 1949 as a way of encouraging cooperation between countries in Europe after the Second World War. It is not related to the European Union. There are 47 members of the CoE compared to the EU's 28. The UK became a member of the CoE at its inception in 1949, some 24 years before joining the EU. The UK's membership of the Council will be completely unaffected if it exits from the EU.

ECHR - The European Convention on Human Rights

ECtHR - The European Court of Human Rights

Treaty - this is an agreement between states that has been ratified and formally concluded.

Protocol - a treaty that supplements or adds to an existing treaty.

Ratification - A state notifies the other parties that they consent to be bound by a treaty. This is called ratification. The treaty is now officially binding on the state.

Signing - By signing a treaty, a state expresses the intention to comply with a treaty. However, this expression of intent is not binding on its own.

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What is the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)?

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The ECHR is a treaty between the 47 member states of the Council of Europe that commits them them to protect the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all people.

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Throughout the 20th century, Magna Carta inspired figures across the political spectrum, from suffragists and fascists to those drafting human rights legislation. Dr Alexander Lock explores the charter's relationship to the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and modern America.

Although today only three of its clauses remain on the statute book, Magna Carta continues to flourish as a potent and internationally recognised symbol of freedom under the rule of law. Generations have valorised Magna Carta as the 'corner stone of English liberty' and guarantor of democratic government. In its most modern incarnation it is seen as a charter that heroically established the right to trial by jury and ensured that no one - not even the king - was above the law. While the history of the Great Charter is more complicated than this popular historical narrative allows, the repetition of this interpretation has enabled Magna Carta to become a powerful totem of liberty, right and justice through the ages. As the Dean of Harvard Law School, Erwin N Griswold, noted in 1965, 'Magna Carta is not primarily significant for what it was but rather for what it was made to be'.

Contemporary references to Magna Carta are legion. Despite being 800 years old it still regularly appears in political debates, courtroom judgments and newspaper opinion pieces around the world. Such is the power and flexibility of its message that lawyers and commentators still reference it, even though today's issues and technologies have little in common with medieval England. In 1966, for example, William A Hyman drafted a 'Magna Carta of Space', while more recently in 2014 and 2018 Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, made calls for a 'Magna Carta for the internet'.

Magna Carta and human rights

Perhaps the most important modern legacy of Magna Carta is its influence on both the language and intent of contemporary international charters on human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, consciously echoed the clauses of Magna Carta relating to freedom of movement, arbitrary arrest and trial by jury. It was hoped, as Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), the chairman of the committee, stated, that the Universal Declaration would help extend the Great Charter's promise of liberty across the world and would hopefully become 'the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere '.

The European Convention on Human Rights was ratified in 1950 and represented a collective commitment of European states to the United Nations' Universal Declaration. It echoed the famous clause 29 of the 1225 Magna Carta which prevented punishment without 'lawful judgment of his peers'. Articles five and six (paragraph one) of the Convention assert that 'everyone has the right to liberty and security of person', and shall not 'be deprived of his liberty save ... in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law', tried by 'a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time'.

Magna Carta across the globe

As these international declarations of human rights demonstrate, Magna Carta is widely recognised as a key historical document across the globe, and it continues to be seen as an enduring symbol of freedom and the rule of law. One example of the document's enduring international importance is the purchase by the Australian government in 1952 of a 1297 Magna Carta from an English private school for £12,500. This manuscript is now displayed prominently in Australia's Parliament building in Canberra, not far from Magna Carta Place and its monument to the document, erected in 1997. Elsewhere across the Commonwealth, Magna Carta has been vaunted as an important document for individual political rights. It was publicly praised by Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) during his famous trial for his life at Pretoria in 1964 and looked to by women agitating for female suffrage in the Bahamas in the 1960s.

Indeed, in the cause for women's rights worldwide, Magna Carta has represented an important symbol of justice. In 1911, a feature article on the Great Charter in the suffragette newspaper Votes for Women used it to justify direct action against the authorities. In 1915, Helena Normanton (1882-1957), the suffragette and lawyer, claimed that denying women the right to vote was 'expressly contrary to Magna Carta', which had stated that right and justice should be neither delayed nor denied. Most recently, in August 2009, the government of the Philippines passed into law the Republic Act 9710, better known as the 'Magna Carta for Women', guaranteeing fundamental women's rights in law.

Maud Arncliffe Sennett's scrapbook, volume 13

Votes for Women was the official newspaper of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), which campaigned for women's suffrage in Britain. This 1911 issue depicts the barons presenting Magna Carta to King John; while an accompanying essay outlines 'How Militant Methods Won the Great Charter'

Article on Magna Carta and women from journal The Englishwoman

In 1915, to coincide with Magna Carta's 700th anniversary, the suffragette campaigner, Helena Normanton (d. 1957), published this essay on 'Magna Carta and Women'. In it she argued that the disenfranchisement of women contravened Magna Carta's famous clauses 39 and 40.

Magna Carta in America

Though it is widely recognised across the globe, it is perhaps in the USA that Magna Carta enjoys the greatest prestige today. Inherited from England by the early colonists, Magna Carta is considered the basis for the United States constitutional guarantees of equality under the law and due process as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and US Bill of Rights. Murals depicting the sealing of Magna Carta at Runnymede decorate the walls of numerous courthouses across America, including the Supreme Court. Such is America's reverence for the document that in 2007 the American financier David Rubenstein paid $21.3 million (equivalent to roughly £13.5 million) to obtain a copy for the nation - the highest price ever paid for a single sheet of parchment.

With certain exceptions - including a plaque laid by the Prime Minister of India in 1997 and a small memorial lodge belonging to the National Trust - the site of Runnymede itself is dominated by American monuments. The most magnificent of the memorials is a flood-lit neo-classical rotunda erected in 1957 by the American Bar Association. Designed by the English architect Sir Edward Maufe (1883-1974), the rotunda is filled with American stars and houses a pedestal dedicated to 'Magna Carta symbol of freedom under law'.

Nearby is an oak tree planted in 1987 by the Secretary of the United States Army with soil from Virginia, as well as a small cenotaph commemorating the assassinated President John F. Kennedy (1917-63). The Kennedy memorial was consciously placed at Runnymede in order to strengthen Anglo-American relations during the Cold War and to promote the notion that America, 'the Land of the Free', had inherited the ideals of liberty from England's Magna Carta sealed at Runnymede. In her speech dedicating the monument to Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth II stated that Magna Carta was 'a part of the heritage which the people of the United States of America share with us', and that it was therefore 'altogether fitting' that Runnymede 'should be the site of Britain's memorial to the late President '.

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Gifting Magna Carta to the United States

This was not the first time that Magna Carta had been used to strengthen Anglo-American relations. At the outbreak of World War II, an original 1215 Magna Carta belonging to Lincoln Cathedral became stranded in the USA where it had been displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair. As the war intensified the British government debated the idea of gifting the document to the USA as a means of strengthening American public opinion in favour of the British war effort, and with the ultimate goal of bringing America into the war. The British Government recognised in internal memoranda that 'Magna Carta is a part of American, as well as of English, history and both peoples equally trace their personal liberties from the signing of that document'. By emphasising the common 'history and traditions which the two countries have in common' and which are based in a common ideal of liberty, the proposed gift of Magna Carta, it was thought, would 'greatly heighten the emotional interest of Americans' in the war against fascism. As one Foreign Office memorandum put it:

The gift of Magna Carta would be at once the most precious of gifts and the most gracious acts in American eyes; it would represent the only really adequate gesture which it is in our power to make in return for the means to preserve our country .

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Although Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was involved in the discussion, the plan was quietly dropped in mid-April 1941 when it was realised that the manuscript did not belong to the government to give away. Following the attacks on Pearl Harbour, by December of that year the United States had entered the war and Lincoln's Magna Carta spent the remainder of the conflict safely locked in Fort Knox under close guard until it was returned home in 1946.

Magna Carta and the British Union of Fascists

Of all Magna Carta's uses during World War Two, perhaps the most surprising is that made of it by the British Union of Fascists (BUF) who engaged Magna Carta to oppose Defence Regulation 18B. This regulation allowed the indefinite detention without charge of people suspected of posing a threat to national security, leading to the imprisonment of many BUF members including their leader Oswald Mosely (1896-1980) and his wife Diana.

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In the guise of the 18B Publicity Council, the outlawed BUF issued a series of pamphlets invoking Magna Carta to decry the infringement of their civil liberties that the legislation caused. Their pamphlets appeared under titles such as Runnymede Reversed and Magna Carta in the Dustbin, and all variously claimed that this 'obnoxious Regulation, which completely destroys the fundamental principles of British liberty' means 'Magna Carta is well and truly in the dustbin, Habeas Corpus on the scrap heap and the Bill of Rights gone for salvage'.

Magna Carta in the Dustbin

This pamphlet (1943), written under the pseudonym Jane Zedd, declares that Magna Carta is 'well and truly in the dustbin'. It was created by the British Union of Fascists, whose rights were limited during the war by Defence Regulation 18B.

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Magna Carta in opposition to Fascism

Magna Carta was also referenced by those opposing fascism. In 1940 the German Jewish composer, Kurt Weill (1900-50), then living in New York, composed a 'Ballad of Magna Carta' which represented the war on the continent as one in defence of liberty against 'tyrants'. The allies also made use of the Charter as an embodiment of those ideals over which the conflict was fought. It is no coincidence that the Airforce's Memorial commemorating over 20,000 airmen who lost their lives in World War II was built on Cooper's Hill overlooking the site of Runnymede. As Queen Elizabeth II noted at the opening of the memorial, there could be no better location for the monument:

It was in those fields of Runnymede seven centuries ago that our forefathers first planted a seed of liberty which helped to spread across the earth the conviction that man should be free and not enslaved .

Score of The Ballad of Magna Carta

Composed by Kurt Weill and first performed in 1940, The Ballad portrays King John as a deeply unpopular monarch, abandoned by his supporters and compelled to agree to Magna Carta.

Usage terms © The Ballad of Magna Carta: Cantata for Solo Voices & Chorus with Piano Accompaniment. Words by Maxwell Anderson, Music by Kurt Weill (New York: Chappell & Co., 1940)
Held by© The Ballad of Magna Carta: Cantata for Solo Voices & Chorus with Piano Accompaniment. Words by Maxwell Anderson, Music by Kurt Weill (New York: Chappell & Co., 1940)

On St George's Day, April 1944, two months prior to the D-Day landings, service personnel from the Ninth United States Air Force paraded at Runnymede and presented a national flag to the citizens of Egham in a thanksgiving ceremony for Magna Carta. The parade demonstrated publicly the strength of Anglo-American unity and highlighted Magna Carta as a metaphor for the shared values of liberty and freedom for which the allies were fighting.

A powerful protean symbol

Magna Carta has become closely associated with ideas of good governance, justice and liberty. The very fact that Magna Carta could be celebrated by the British Union of Fascists at the same time that the British government was negotiating its gift to the United States; or the fact that Helena Normanton could invoke it in support of women's political rights, denied by a Parliament whose very building is permeated with the iconography of the Great Charter, goes to the very heart of why Magna Carta has endured for 800 years. It is a powerful protean symbol whose broad - and often misinterpreted - principles can be used to defend a range of political and legal positions and lend the semblance of political legitimacy to those that invoke it. This has been the case throughout the Great Charter's history and, as the modern invocations suggest, it is still the case today.

Footnotes

[1] Just as in the Supreme Court of the United States - where Magna Carta appears on the door and in the courtroom itself - the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is imbued with references to the Great Charter. The front of the Court boasts a grand frieze depicting King John granting Magna Carta completed in 1913, whilst the Court's library doors, made in 2008, are etched with a facsimile of the Great Charter. Across Parliament Square, in Westminster Palace, Magna Carta is equally celebrated as part of the nation's historical narrative. 18 grand sculptures of the Magna Carta barons and bishops, commissioned by Prince Albert in 1858, look down into the chamber of the House of Lords, whilst in St. Stephen's Hall hangs an enormous, and unsettling, painting of King John sealing Magna Carta, painted as part of a series of pictures marking 'Great domestic events in British history' in 1927.

Alexander Lock researched the post-medieval legacy of Magna Carta for the British Library's major exhibition, Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy (13 March-1 September 2015). His particular area of expertise focuses on 18th-century British political, religious and economic history, and he has recently completed an AHRC funded research project on the life and networks of the English Catholic baronet Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745-1810) due to be published by Boydell and Brewer in 2015.

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Throughout the 20th century, Magna Carta inspired figures across the political spectrum, from suffragists and fascists to those drafting human rights legislation. Dr Alex Lock explores the charter's relationship to the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and modern America.

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Today Magna Carta has become a world-class brand, representing human rights, democracy and free speech - despite the fact that the original document makes no mention of these principles. Joshua Rozenberg explains Magna Carta's place in modern legal and popular culture, and reveals the importance of its 800-year-old symbolism.

Legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg explores the influence Magna Carta has within the UK's legal system, and asks what the charter means for us today.

Magna Carta is a world-class brand. It stands for human rights and democracy. It stands for trial by jury. It stands for free speech, the rule of law and personal liberty.

Except it doesn't mention any of these things - even in translation. Instead, Magna Carta has quite a bit to say about fish weirs and river banks, about taxes and debts. Two months after King John (r.1199-1216) granted the charter to his barons, he had it nullified by the Pope. There were good grounds to do so, since it was extracted from the King by duress. Although Magna Carta was later reissued, only a few sentences remain on the statute book today.

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But brands are not just the sum of their parts. To most people, Coca-Cola means a lot more than sweetened fizzy water with added natural flavouring. Apple products are adored by users who are utterly indifferent to personal computers. And Magna Carta is similarly iconic: regardless of what it says on the parchment, it enjoys instant recognition as the most important legal document in the common law world.

We see that from the countless images of King John meeting the barons in 1215, all of them imaginary and most of them wildly anachronistic. We see it in the bags and baubles, the mugs and magnets, sold on the strength of two Latin words. We see it in newspaper cartoons, with David Low warning us in the Evening Standard in 1934 that Oswald Mosley's 'Magnissima Carta' would mean the end of free speech and Peter Brookes telling us in The Times in 2005 that Tony Blair's anti-terrorism controls left the United Kingdom with no more than a 'Mini Carta'.

And we hear it in the immortal lines spoken in 1959 by one of television's best-loved comedians. 'Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you?' demanded Tony Hancock (1924-68) of his fellow jurors: 'Did she die in vain?' Perhaps Galton and Simpson, Hancock's scriptwriters, were recalling Sellar and Yeatman's classic history spoof 1066 And All That, with its frontispiece image of a king smitten by the sight of his lady's magna garter.

The symbolism of Magna Carta

Such confusion - iconoclasm, even - is understandable in a nation that puts its trust in people rather than in paper. The British have never codified their constitution because most people think that writing it down would not achieve very much. Magna Carta may vie with the English language itself for the title of Britain's greatest gift to the world, but its place in the laws of England and Wales is largely symbolic.

And yet it is a symbolism that crosses the political spectrum, inspiring fascists and communists, suffragists and environmentalists. Nelson Mandela (1918-2013), speaking from the dock during the Rivonia trial of 1964, expressed his admiration for it. The German-born composer Kurt Weill (1900-50) based a cantata on it. Churchill was advised that a copy of the original charter might reinforce a shared political heritage and secure the support of the United States in World War II.

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Score of The Ballad of Magna Carta

Composed by Kurt Weill and first performed in 1940, The Ballad portrays King John as a deeply unpopular monarch, abandoned by his supporters and compelled to agree to Magna Carta.

To some, it seems to be a magic charter. Magna Carta was relied on by one of the Occupy London group of protestors who camped in the courtyard of St Paul's Cathedral in the winter of 2011/12. Paul Randle-Jolliffe maintained that his supposed descent from one of King John's barons exempted him from compliance with an eviction order - until the Court of Appeal explained that 'Magna Carta heir' was a concept unknown to the law. As the judges told him, 'Chapter 29, with its requirement that the state proceeds according to the law and its prohibition on the selling or delaying of justice, is seen by many as the historical foundation for the rule of law in England; but it has no bearing on the arguments in this case.'

That was not a reference to clause 29 of the first Magna Carta. After its annulment in 1215, that charter was revised and reissued in 1216, 1217 and 1225. It was the 1225 version - much shorter than the original - that was confirmed by Edward I (r.1272-1307) and found its way on to the first Statute Roll in 1297. And most of the 1297 statute was repealed by Parliament at various times between 1828 and 1969.

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The modern legal interpretation of Magna Carta

Just three clauses of that statute remain law in England and Wales today. Clause 1 provides that 'the Church of England shall be free'. Clause 9 promises that 'the City of London shall have all the old liberties and customs' that it had before. But the best-known remnant is clause 29. Derived from clauses 39 and 40 of the 1215 charter, it says:

No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right.

These are fine principles but they do not stand up well to modern principles of statutory interpretation.

First, does 'man' embrace 'woman'? Yes, because the Interpretation Act 1978 says that 'words importing the masculine gender include the feminine'. Next, can anyone who is not a 'freeman' claim the rights listed in the first sentence? Historians tell us that freemen were able to marry or go where they pleased, unlike the rural peasantry or serfs who were generally bonded to their land and unable to marry without purchasing their lord's permission. Fortunately, the Human Rights Act 1998 requires all legislation to be given effect in a way that is compatible with human rights. Courts would be expected to interpret 'freemen' as meaning 'all people'.

So the first sentence of clause 29 seems to mean that nobody can be convicted or punished except by the law of the land. One should not underestimate the importance of such a concession by the King in 1215. 'There, clearly recognisable, was the rule of law in embryo,' observed Lord Bingham, perhaps the most eminent English judge of recent times.

In the United Kingdom, governments would continue to observe the law of the land even if clause 29 of the 1297 statute were repealed. And yet the rule of law is far from universal. In the spring of 2014, almost 800 years after Magna Carta was granted, we saw protestors shot dead by military snipers in Kiev, a city at the very borders of Europe. There are several parts of the world in which opponents of the ruling regime simply 'disappear'. Their supporters would welcome concessions such as those made by King John in 1215.

The second sentence of chapter 29 was cited by a High Court judge as recently as 2007. Quoting Sir James Holt's resonant translation (1965) 'to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice', Mr Justice Munby complained about the time the courts had taken to hear a housing claim, expressing the view that 'the potential delay here amounted to a denial of justice in the sense in which that phrase is used in Magna Carta'. Warming to his theme, Munby said there were 'some principles that ring down the centuries'. In this respect, he continued, the message of Magna Carta was 'timeless'.

Is Magna Carta still used in the courts?

A search of the Westlaw UK database reveals that the courts of England and Wales have referred to Magna Carta in around 160 reported judgments over a period of some 450 years: not, perhaps, a particularly large number. And I have not found a single modern English case that was decided on the strength of Magna Carta alone.

Litigants-in-person - non-lawyers - tend to invest Magna Carta with more weight than it can carry. In 2013, a man acquitted of growing cannabis sought compensation from Scottish police and prosecutors for time he had spent on remand. David Watson relied on Magna Carta to support his claim that he was not bound by laws to which he had not consented. A Scottish judge had no difficulty in finding no basis for that claim.

These litigants seem to imagine that Magna Carta operates as some sort of restraint on the supremacy of Parliament. It does not. The power of Parliament to legislate as it sees fit dates from the Bill of Rights 1689. It cannot be limited by a statute passed four centuries earlier.

Judges do not enforce Magna Carta today because its terms are too broad to be applied by the courts. It is all very well to say that justice delayed is justice denied. But how long does the delay have to be for it to amount to an injustice? Although some civil claims must now be lodged within a matter of weeks, there is no statute of limitations in criminal cases. Anthony Sawoniuk, a Nazi war criminal, was jailed at the Old Bailey in 1999 for murdering Jews in 1942. Roland Peter Wright, a former headmaster, was imprisoned in 2014 for abusing pupils between 1959 and 1970. Were such delays sufficiently long to render those convictions unjust?

'To no one will we sell ... justice' is another provision that is difficult to apply. Does it mean simply that judges must not take bribes? Nobody would disagree with that. Or does it mean that people who cannot afford lawyers - and even court fees - must be given the funding they need to enforce their rights?

What's more, 'judgment of his peers' does not guarantee trial by jury. Juries, as we now know them, did not exist in 1215 and are used in only a small minority of trials today.

Magna Carta is still cited in the courts of the United Kingdom - but often as little more than a historical flourish. Some examples from recent judgments: the importance attributed to personal freedom can be traced back at least to Magna Carta; it has been said from the time of Magna Carta that justice delayed is justice denied; and open justice is one of the oldest principles of English law, going back to before Magna Carta. And here is Lady Justice Arden, giving judgment in 2011. 'The right to liberty of the person is a fundamental right,' she said. 'It has been so regarded since at least the time of the well-known provisions of clause 39 of Magna Carta, which in due course found its reflection in article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 5 of the [European] Convention [on Human Rights].'

Usage terms: : Public Domain

Usage terms: : Public Domain

Magna Carta in the United States

This takes us to lands where Magna Carta is revered rather more than in the country of its birth. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Article 9, summarising clause 39 of the 1215 charter, says, 'No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile'.

That, in turn, led directly to the European Convention on Human Rights, which took effect in 1953. Article 5 begins: 'Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person'. Through the Human Rights Act 1998, article 5 became enforceable against public bodies in the courts of the United Kingdom.

In 1939, when Lincoln Cathedral's copy of the 1215 charter was put on show at the World Fair in New York, an estimated 14 million people went to see it in just six months. After war broke out, the cathedral's copy was stranded in the United States, leading to the suggestion that the Americans should be allowed to keep it - or alternatively have it replaced with one of the copies now displayed in the British Library.

It would have been a priceless gift. An American author, writing in 1991, calculated that more than 900 federal and state courts in the United States had cited Magna Carta. In the half-century between 1940 and 1990, the United States Supreme Court had done so in more than sixty cases.

More recently, the highest court in the United States had to decide whether foreign prisoners detained by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, could seek writs of habeas corpus that might lead to their release. Allowing their appeal in 2008, the court traced that powerful remedy back beyond the United States constitution of 1789 to what the judges regarded as its origin in clause 39 of Magna Carta. 'Gradually, the writ of habeas corpus became the means by which the promise of Magna Carta was fulfilled,' wrote Justice Kennedy for the majority.

Usage terms: : Public Domain

A writ of habeas corpus ('have the body') commands someone holding a prisoner to bring that person before the court and justify imprisonment. But the link between Magna Carta and habeas corpus is surely romantic rather than historic. The writ was established in its modern form in the late sixteenth century, although its origins can be traced back to medieval court records.

A constitutional instrument

Despite all this, there is more to Magna Carta than words and parchment. It is not just one of the oldest statutes in force. It is, as the United Kingdom Supreme Court noted in January 2014, a constitutional instrument - standing alongside the Petition of Right 1628, the Bill of Rights 1689, the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Act of Union 1707. It was arguable, said the court, that fundamental principles contained in such constitutional instruments were not abrogated by the European Communities Act, which requires courts in the United Kingdom to follow European law.

Lord Judge, a former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, summed it up well in 2014.

Whatever we may find in the written text, Magna Carta has come down to us through the centuries as the most important single document in the development of constitutional and legal freedom and adherence to the rule of law in the common law world, eventually followed in and hugely influencing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

And, as Lord Bingham, another former chief justice, wrote in 2010, the few clauses of the 1215 Magna Carta that remain law today 'have the power to make the blood race'. Their words, he suggested, 'should be inscribed on the stationery of the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office in place of the rather vapid slogans which their letters now carry'.

But Bingham was too wise a judge to think he could enforce a medieval statute in modern times. 'The significance of Magna Carta,' he wrote, 'lay not only in what it actually said but, perhaps to an even greater extent, in what later generations claimed and believed it had said. Sometimes the myth is more important than the actuality.'

It is an 800-year-old myth of which we may all be proud.

Written by Joshua Rozenberg

Joshua Rozenberg is Britain's best-known commentator on the law. He presents the long-running Radio 4 series Law in Action and writes a weekly column for the Guardian.

He has a particular interest in freedom of expression and wrote the well-reviewed bookPrivacy and the Press for Oxford University Press (2004, updated 2005; Chinese edition 2012).

After taking a law degree at Oxford he trained as a solicitor, qualifying in 1976. He holds honorary doctorates in law from the University of Hertfordshire, Nottingham Trent University, the University of Lincoln and the University of Law. He is an honorary bencher of Gray's Inn.

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Today Magna Carta has become a world-class brand, representing human rights, democracy and free speech - despite the fact that the original document makes no mention of these principles. Joshua Rozenberg explains Magna Carta's place in modern legal and popular culture, and reveals the importance of its 800-year-old symbolism.

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Medieval monks portrayed King John as an evil monster. Modern historians portray him as an energetic king who tried to increase his power in difficult circumstances.

John's brother, Richard I, caused problems

John's brother, Richard I, had spent all the money in the on his . The Crusades were a series of military campaigns over hundreds of years to take sole control of Jerusalem for the Christian faith. Richard also let the become too powerful whilst he was in the .

King John was unpopular

John collected taxes, modernised the government and exerted his power over the Church, Scotland and Ireland. This made him unpopular with the barons. In 1201-2, helped by King Philip of France, the lords of Lusignan, a powerful alliance of French nobles, rebelled against John. John mounted a huge campaign to re-conquer Normandy, but was badly defeated at the Battle of Bouvines (1214). John was forced to pay the huge sum of 20,000 marks and concede some lands in France in order for King Philip to recognise him as the heir to Richard I. John was exposed as diplomatically weak.

Rebellions and Magna Carta

The reign of King John shows what often happened in the Middle Ages when a lost a war - his authority was completely undermined. The barons rebelled and, on 15 June 1215, they forced John to agree to Magna Carta (The Great Charter) - a set of demands by which the barons tried to limit the power of the king to their advantage.

The reign of King John was a turning point in the history of England's government. The barons - successfully - had said 'no' to the king, and made him do as they wanted. The charter only spoke about and not the majority of people who were peasants. No of England ever had unrestricted, or , power again and within a century England saw the beginnings of .

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A summary of King John and Magna Carta - King John and Magna Carta - KS3 History Revision - BBC Bitesize

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Medieval monks portrayed King John as an evil monster. Modern historians portray him as an energetic king who tried to increase his power in difficult circumstances. John's brother, Richard I, had spent all the money in the on his .

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KS3 History learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers organised by topic.

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Charles was sentenced to death on 30 January 1649. The execution took place on a specially erected platform in front of the Banqueting House in London. In the morning, he requested an extra shirt, as he did not want to be shivering in the cold; he worried that people would think he was shaking with nerves. Charles maintained his innocence, and on the platform before his execution, he claimed that he was a ' of the people.' The executioner wore a hood, making him anonymous. Their identity was never revealed.

After his execution, the executioner dropped Charles' head in front of the platform, where members of the crowd dipped handkerchiefs in his blood and cut locks of his hair. Charles' body was taken to Windsor and buried in St George's Chapel, alongside Henry VIII.

Following Charles' trial, there was an 11-year period when England was ruled without a monarch. Oliver Cromwell led England from 1653, taking the title of 'Lord Protector'. He was succeeded briefly by his son, Richard Cromwell. When Charles II was crowned in 1660, 39 of the 59 commissioners who had signed his father's death warrant were still alive. He ordered that they should be put on trial for regicide.

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Charles was sentenced to death on 30 January 1649. The execution took place on a specially erected platform in front of the Banqueting House in London. In the morning, he requested an extra shirt, as he did not want to be shivering in the cold; he worried that people would think he was shaking with nerves.

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How to be a Good Citizen | Worksheet | Education.com

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From voting to cleaning up to just plain common courtesy, this social studies worksheet gives a few examples of how to be a good citizen.

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Want to be a youth activist? Here are some tips | CBC Kids News

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Want to be a youth activist? Here are some tips | CBC Kids News

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Want to be a youth activist? Here are some tips | CBC Kids News

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What does youth engagement mean today? How and why are young people increasingly stepping up to spur global action and catalyze change? The answers lie in the voices, actions and initiatives of young people eager to build up their communities and create a better world. Mounting discontent with political, social and cultural structures has spurred young people globally to rise up and engage with the systems around them, becoming resourceful advocates for gender equality, racial justice, climate action and peace.

Young people are on the front lines in the fight for a better world

The theme of International Youth Day 2020, "Youth Engagement for Global Action," presents an opportunity to celebrate and amplify these young people's actions and to applaud the strength, courage and immense potential and innovation found in youth-led initiatives. This year's International Youth Day falls during a global emergency, when youth engagement is more critical than ever. Despite the disruptive impact of Covid-19 on youth and adolescents - particularly on education, disruption of routines and activities, and mental health and well-being - young people are on the front lines of the response, spreading awareness and devising inventive solutions to the effects of the pandemic on communities and economies.

Young people today are ever more aware of their capacity to create change and solutions; we have a responsibility to empower and enable their continued engagement. Below, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres speaks on the significance of International Youth Day 2020:

Peacebuilding is one of the key areas where children and adolescents are raising their voices. In South Sudan, young people are sending the message that peace cannot wait any longer. The UNICEF-supported Poems for Peace project has given South Sudan's youth an opportunity to advocate for lasting peace and to use poetry to explain in their own words that they have had enough of the horrors of war and violence and that they embrace peace for the stability of their future.

A team of young people in Kyrgyzstan created a ClickHelp Bot to support victims of domestic violence

Young people are also creating digital solutions to respond to social issues affecting their communities. In Kyrgyzstan, there has been a rise in domestic violence, particularly with the stay home mandate during COVID-19. In response, young people participating in a UNICEF-supported hackathon created the ClickHelp Bot project to help women and youth recognize signs of domestic violence, as well as connect them with the nearest crisis centers and psychologists.

Anastasia, a member of the team who developed the ClickHelp Bot project, said, "Every year in Kyrgyzstan, the number of registered acts of domestic violence is growing, but there are a huge number of cases that are not taken into account, because not all victims are ready to seek help. From the very beginning, we set ourselves the goal of developing a bot that will help at least one woman recognize signs of violence and connect her with people who will support and help."

Youth tech innovations are also assisting with the exchange of vital information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the national Hackathon, Hack4Youth, young innovators from Niger have designed and developed an interactive web platform to help communities and young people get information, share concerns and report alerts of COVID-19.

In Niger, young people developed an interactive web platform to help communities stay safe from COVID-19

Jamilou Idi Saadou, one of the members of the innovation team, spoke on the importance of youth engagement during this crisis: "Young people represent almost two-thirds of Niger population and if at least one young person per village will be engaged in fighting COVID-19, 20,000 girls and boys will spread the word about protection measures, symptoms and assist in collecting cases to be reported to the health system."

As COVID-19 restrictions continue to remain in place, young people are also faced with the challenge of exploring new ways to deliver peer education during social distancing. Children and adolescents in Botswana, for example are mobilizing their peers virtually through their social media platforms including Whats App and Facebook. Volunteers are providing peer support by spreading verified information on prevention of COVID-19 from UNICEF and WHO websites. Volunteers are also disseminating information on where young people can access HIV and sexual and reproductive health services, on general health and well-being practices and on where to report domestic violence during lock down.

In the area of climate change, young people have made their voices louder than ever. For example, UNICEF Bolivia supported Bolivian adolescents and youth to form a nationwide adolescent and youth climate organization, Consejo Juvenil por la Madre Tierra. The organization's achievements received national and international coverage and include drafting legislation and organizing a nationwide awareness campaign for the reduction of plastic bag use.

In 2019, more than 4 million adolescents across 113 countries participated in civic engagement activities through UNICEF-supported programs

Youth-led initiatives are better placed to succeed and create lasting impact when they are supported by national governments. Empowering youth to engage in their communities is imperative but ensuring their representation in political spaces is equally vital. In Jordan, the National Youth Engagement and Volunteering Movement, Nahno, has been integrated in the Government's official response to COVID-19. More than 33,000 young volunteers have registered and carried out activities including tutoring, educational support, portal and app development, online workshops, administration of social media and community engagement.

The contributions of young people within their local contexts will go on to outline global political discourse, making certain that issues of equality are at the forefront. In 2019, more than 4 million adolescents across 113 countries participated in or led civic engagement activities through UNICEF-supported programs. Working together with young people helps UNICEF undertake smarter programming and promotes inclusivity of youth voices in decision and policymaking. There is still a long way to go: Progress will take perseverance and resilience but there is no doubt that empowering young people is the most viable approach towards sustainable change.
Your generous contribution will support UNICEF programs to help young people create a better world. Learn more about how to take action and encourage young people's advocacy. Top photo: Letícia Gomes (far left), a 15-year-old girl from a small community in northeast Brazil, speaks with a group of teenagers as part of her peer-to-peer education work through UNICEF Brazil's Selo program, an initiative that encourages municipalities to implement public policies focused on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. © UNICEF/UN0341608/Pinheiro

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Youth Advocates Step Up to Spur Global Action

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What does youth engagement mean today? How and why are young people increasingly stepping up to spur global action and catalyze change? The answers lie in the voices, actions and initiatives of young people eager to build up their communities and create a better world.

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The Greta generation - youth activism around the world

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The Greta generation - youth activism around the world

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The Greta generation - youth activism around the world

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Why democracy is still the best form of government | Alex Tan | TEDxChristchurch

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The world's most famous document (Language level B2-C1) - articoli - SpeakUpOnline.it

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Speak Up la prima rivista audiomensile studiata appositamente per coloro che vogliono mantenere in forma il proprio inglese.

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What are the universal human rights? - Benedetta Berti

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We're pausing our live coverage on the aftermath of Wednesday's events at the US Capitol. Here's a reminder of the top developments:

President-elect Joe Biden described the violence as "one of the darkest days in the history of our nation" and blamed President Trump for stoking violence. He added it was "totally unacceptable" police had shown more leniency than in Black Lives Matter protests last year

Former First Lady Michelle Obama said Wednesday's events "desecrated the centre of American government", adding: "Millions voted for a man so obviously willing to burn down our democracy for his own ego"

Top Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has led calls for Trump to be removed from office. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, urged Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows for a transfer of power from the president to the vice-president

Transport Secretary Elaine Chao has become the first cabinet member to resign over the "traumatic" unrest

Other former supporters have strongly criticised the president, with former Attorney General Bill Barr saying Trump's actions were a "betrayal of his office and supporters" and Mick Mulvaney announcing he was stepping down from his role as special envoy to Northern Ireland

Foreign leaders have added to the condemnation, with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying Trump was "completely wrong" to incite violence and cast doubt on the election result

A woman who was shot during the unrest has been named as Ashli Babbitt. Three other people died of "medical emergencies", according to police

This live page was brought to you from our teams in Singapore, London, the US and Canada.

The editors include Kevin Ponniah, Claudia Allen, Mal Siret, Tom Geoghegan, Jude Sheerin, Hugo Bachega, Helier Cheung, Sarah Fowler and Jessica Murphy. The writers include Joshua Nevett, Max Matza, Sam Cabral, Ritu Prasad, Penny Spiller, Georgina Rannard, Andreas Illmer and Victoria Bisset.

Thank you for joining us.

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Capitol riot: Biden says BLM protest would have been treated 'very differently' - BBC News

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We're pausing our live coverage on the aftermath of Wednesday's events at the US Capitol. Here's a reminder of the top developments: President-elect Joe Biden described the violence as "one of the darkest days in the history of our nation" and blamed President Trump for stoking violence.

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World leaders have condemned violent scenes in Washington after supporters of US President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday.

The riot forced the suspension of a joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden's electoral victory.

Many leaders called for peace and an orderly transition of power, describing what happened as "horrifying" and an "attack on democracy".

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the "disgraceful scenes".

"The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power," he wrote on Twitter.

Other UK politicians joined him in criticising the violence, with opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer calling it a "direct attack on democracy".

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said those who stormed the US legislature were "attackers and rioters" and that she felt "angry and also sad" after seeing pictures from the scene.

She told a meeting of German conservatives: "I regret very much that President Trump has still not admitted defeat, but has kept raising doubts about the elections."

China meanwhile attempted to draw comparisons between the rioters who entered Congress to try and subvert the US election result and pro-democracy protesters who stormed Hong Kong's Legislative Council last year.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying claimed events in Hong Kong were more "severe" than those in Washington but "not one demonstrator died".

The comparisons between the two incidents has caused outrage among Hong Kong's pro-democracy activists and their supporters.

Russia blamed the "archaic" US electoral system and the politicisation of the media for Wednesday's unrest in Washington.

"The electoral system in the United States is archaic, it does not meet modern democratic standards, creating opportunities for numerous violations, and the American media have become an instrument of political struggle," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Elsewhere in Europe, a chorus of leaders condemned the scenes in Washington as an attack on democracy.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: "I have trust in the strength of US democracy. The new presidency of Joe Biden will overcome this tense stage, uniting the American people."

In a video on Twitter, French President Emmanuel Macron said: "When, in one of the world's oldest democracies, supporters of an outgoing president take up arms to challenge the legitimate results of an election, a universal idea - that of 'one person, one vote' - is undermined.

"What happened today in Washington DC is not American, definitely. We believe in the strength of our democracies. We believe in the strength of American democracy" he added.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven described the incident as "worrying" and said it was "an assault on democracy".

Skip twitter post by SwedishPM

Deeply worrying developments in Washington, D.C. This is an assault on democracy. President Trump and several members of Congress bear substantial responsibility for developments. The democratic election process must be respected.
- SwedishPM (@SwedishPM) January 6, 2021

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

Top EU leaders have also made their views known. European Council President Charles Michel said he trusted the US "to ensure a peaceful transfer of power" to Mr Biden, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she looked forward to working with the Democrat, who "won the election".

Like many other global figures, the Secretary-General of the Nato military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said that the outcome of the election "must be respected".

For his part, UN Secretary-General António Guterres was "saddened" by the events at the US Capitol, his spokesman said.

The events also shocked America's close ally and neighbour to its north. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians were "deeply disturbed and saddened by the attack on democracy".

"Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the US must be upheld - and it will be," he wrote on Twitter.

From New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, tweeted that "democracy - the right of people to exercise a vote, have their voice heard and then have that decision upheld peacefully - should never be undone by a mob".

Meanwhile Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia - another close US ally - condemned the "distressing scenes" and said he looked forward to a peaceful transfer of power.

In India, the world's largest democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi - who has enjoyed a good relationship with President Trump - said he was "distressed to see news about rioting and violence" in Washington.

"Orderly and peaceful transfer of power must continue," he tweeted.

Skip twitter post 3 by Narendra Modi

Distressed to see news about rioting and violence in Washington DC. Orderly and peaceful transfer of power must continue. The democratic process cannot be allowed to be subverted through unlawful protests.
- Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 7, 2021

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

Turkey, an ally through Nato, said it invited "all parties" to show "restraint and common sense".

The Venezuelan government, which the US does not recognise as legitimate, said "with this regrettable episode, the United States suffers the same thing that it has generated in other countries with its policies of aggression".

In statements on Twitter, Argentina's President Alberto Fernández and Chile's President Sebastián Piñera also condemned the scenes in Washington. Mr Piñera said Chile "trusts in the solidity of US democracy to guarantee the rule of law".

In Japan, one of America's closest allies and partners, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said the government hoped for a "peaceful transfer of power" in the United States.

From Fiji, Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who led a coup in 2006, also expressed outrage at the events that took place.

Skip twitter post 4 by Frank Bainimarama

The violent scenes we saw in Washington today are an affront to democracies around the globe. True and genuine democracy is a precious treasure that no nation should ever take for granted. We are confident the USA will soon close this ugly chapter once and for all.
- Frank Bainimarama (@FijiPM) January 7, 2021

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

And in Singapore, Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean said he had watched as the "shocking" scenes took place, adding: "Its a sad day."

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US Capitol riots: World leaders react to 'horrifying' scenes in Washington

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World leaders have condemned violent scenes in Washington after supporters of US President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday. The riot forced the suspension of a joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden's electoral victory. Many leaders called for peace and an orderly transition of power, describing what happened as "horrifying" and an "attack on democracy".

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This is how the Trump presidency ends. Not with a whimper, but with a bang.

For weeks, Donald Trump had been pointing to 6 January as a day of reckoning. It was when he told his supporters to come to Washington DC, and challenge Congress - and Vice-President Mike Pence - to discard the results of November's election and keep the presidency in his hands.

On Wednesday morning, the president and his warm-up speakers set the whirlwind in motion.

Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, said the election disputes should be resolved through "trial by combat".

Donald Trump Jr, the president's oldest son, had a message to members of his party who would not "fight" for their president.

"This isn't their Republican Party anymore," he said. "This is Donald Trump's Republican Party."

Then the president himself encouraged the growing crowd, which had chanted "stop the steal" and "bullshit" at the president's prompting, to march the two miles from the White House to the Capitol.

"We will never give up. We will never concede," the president said. "Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore."

As the president was concluding his remarks, a different kind of drama was playing out within the Capitol itself, as a joint session of Congress prepared to tabulate the state-by-state results of the election.

First, Pence - disregarding the president's urging to throw out the results from contested states - released a statement that he did not have such powers and his role was "largely ceremonial".

Then Republicans issued their first challenge, to Arizona votes, and the House and Senate began their separate deliberations on whether to accept Joe Biden's victory there.

The House proceedings were raucous, with both sides cheering as their speakers made their remarks.

"The oath that I took this past Sunday to defend and support the Constitution makes it necessary for me to object to this travesty," said newly elected Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who had recently made headlines for insisting that she would carry a handgun with her in Congress. "I will not allow the people to be ignored."

In the Senate, the debate was taking on a different tone. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, dressed in the kind of dark suit and tie that befits a funeral, was coming to bury Donald Trump, not praise him.

"If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral," McConnell said. "We'd never see the whole nation accept an election again. Every four years would be a scramble for power at any cost."

The Kentucky senator, who will become the Senate minority leader as a result of his party's two recent defeats in Georgia, said that the that his chamber was designed to "stop short-term passions from boiling over and melting the foundations of our republic".

His words were practically still hanging in the air when the passions outside the Capitol boiled over, and the Trump supporters, perhaps inspired by the earlier speeches, stormed the building. They swamped the insufficient security in place and brought the proceedings to a grinding halt, as lawmakers, staff and media rushed to find shelter from the rioters.

The drama unfolded in fits and starts. Television cameras broadcast images of protesters dancing and waving flags on the steps of the Capitol. Photos and snippets popped up on social media of rioters inside the building, attempting to break into the legislative chambers and posing in the offices of elected legislators; of security officers, guns drawn in the House of Representatives, behind barricaded doors.

In Wilmington, Delaware, President-elect Joe Biden scrapped a planned speech on the economy and condemned what he called an "insurrection" in Washington.

"At this hour our democracy is under unprecedented assault unlike anything we've seen in modern times," he said. "An assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself."

He concluded his short remarks with a challenge to Trump: to go on national television to condemn the violence and "demand an end to this siege".

Minutes later, Trump would offer his message to the nation - but it was not the one Biden suggested.

Instead, sandwiched between his now familiar complaints about the election being "stolen", he told his supporters "to go home, we love you, you're very special".

It was the kind of kid gloves way the president has routinely responded to transgressions from his supporters - whether it was their violent treatment of protesters at his rallies, the "very fine people on both sides" statement after the clashes at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville or his "stand back and stand by" message to the far-right Proud Boys group during the first debate with Biden.

Trump's tweet, and two subsequent ones which also praised his supporters, were flagged and then removed by Twitter, which took the unprecedented step of locking the president's account for 12 hours. Facebook followed suit, banning Trump for a full day.

For the first time in his presidency, for the first time in his long, intimate relationship with social media, Donald Trump had been silenced.

If this is the "at long last, have you left no sense of decency" moment for Donald Trump, it arrives as they're cleaning up blood and broken glass in the US Capitol.

As the afternoon stretched into the evening, and police finally secured the US Capitol, a growing chorus of voices - from the left and right - condemned the violence. It was not surprising that Democrats, like soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, laid the riots at the feet of the president.

"January 6 will go down as one of the darkest days in American history," he said. "A final warning to our nation of the consequences of the demagogic president, the people who enable him, the captive media that parrot his lies and the people who follow him as he attempts to push America to the brink of ruin."

More noteworthy, however, were the Republicans who followed suit.

"We just had a violent mob assault the Capitol in an attempt to prevent those from carrying out our Constitutional duty," tweeted Congresswoman Lynne Cheney, a frequent Republican critic of the president's. "There is no question that the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob."

The condemnations were not limited to Trump's reliable intraparty critics, however. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who frequently sides with the president, also spoke out.

"It's past time for the president to accept the results of the election, quit misleading the American people, and repudiate mob violence," he said.

First Lady Melania Trump's chief of staff Stephanie Grisham and Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews both resigned in protest, and there are reports that more administration officials will head for the exits in the next 24 hours.

CBS has reported that Trump administration Cabinet officials are discussing the 25th amendment to the US constitution, which outlines how the vice-president and a majority of the Cabinet can temporarily remove a president from office.

Whether Pence and the Cabinet act or not, Trump's presidency will be over in just two weeks. At that point, Republican Party leaders will have to grapple with a future where it has lost control of the Congress and the White House and has a former president whose reputation is badly tarnished but who still has strong sway over a sizeable segment of the party's base.

Wednesday's events could presage a pitched battle for the direction of the party, as conservatives within the party attempt to wrest control away from Trump and his loyalists. McConnell, given his remarks earlier in the day, appears willing to chart such a course. Others, like Utah Senator Mitt Romney, a former Republican presidential nominee, may also take a leading roll.

They will be challenged by others within the party who may be more interested in laying claim to Trump's populist mantle. It was notable that Josh Hawley of Missouri, the first senator to announce he would object the results of the election in the Senate, did not step away from his challenge even after the Senate reconvened following the violence in the Capitol.

Crisis can bring political opportunity, and there are many politicians who will not hesitate to use it to gain advantage.

Meanwhile, Trump - for now - is still in power. And while he may be chastened, he may be sitting in the White House residence watching television temporarily without his social media outlet, he will not be silent for long.

And once he decamps for his new Florida home, he could begin making plans to settle scores and, perhaps, someday return to power and rebuild a legacy that, for the moment, lies in tatters.

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Capitol siege: What does a deadly day mean for Trump's legacy?

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This is how the Trump presidency ends. Not with a whimper, but with a bang. For weeks, Donald Trump had been pointing to 6 January as a day of reckoning. It was when he told his supporters to come to Washington DC, and challenge Congress - and Vice-President Mike Pence - to discard the results of November's election and keep the presidency in his hands.

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This document guarantees Barons their ancient rights:

1. No new taxes unless a common counsel agrees.

2. All free men have the right to justice and a fair trial with a jury.

3. The Monarch doesn't have absolute power. The Law is above all men and applies to everyone equally.

4. All free citizens can own and inherit property.

5. Widows who own property don't have to remarry.

Terms and Conditions apply

Magna Carta formally recognised rights that already existed. However in Magna Carta these rights were for free men.
In these times, most people are peasants. That meant they aren't free, because they served landowners. So, still no rights for most of us...

Magna Carta also contained lots of different rules that had nothing to do with rights. For example, it laid out a standard measure for wine, ale, and corn.

This one document puts into writing four huge ideas:

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The Story of Our Freedom - educational digital resources on the history of Magna Carta and its human rights legacy.

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The Story of Our Freedom is a series of online educational resources (including an interactive timeline, video and teacher resources) which explore the evolution of human rights since 1215 and the legacy of Magna Carta on human rights and freedoms in Australia today.

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights by TERMCAT

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Let's Begin...

What rights do people have, and where do they come from? Who gets to make decisions for others, and on what authority? And how can we organize society to meet people's needs? Tom Mullaney shows how these questions challenged an entire nation during the upheaval of the French Revolution.

Create and share a new lesson based on this one.

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Meet The Creators

Educator Tom Mullaney

Director Sashko Danylenko

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What caused the French Revolution? - Tom Mullaney

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What rights do people have, and where do they come from? Who gets to make decisions for others, and on what authority? And how can we organize society to meet people's needs? Tom Mullaney shows how these questions challenged an entire nation during the upheaval of the French Revolution.

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American Revolution: Greatest Revolutions, Part 2

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Revolutions have brought about some of the most radical transformations in world history and politics. Learn what led to the American, French, Latin American, and Russian revolutions, as well as the characteristics commonly shared by nearly all political uprisings.

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Master contenuto in English Bridge, di Cinzia Medaglia. La Rivoluzione Americana, combattuta fra il 1775 e il 1783, attraverso riprese a Boston MA, in particolare nel parco Boston Commons e nei due estremi del Freedom Trail, il percorso della libertà che unisce la Massachusetts State House e Bunker Hill Monument, costruito dove si svolse la battaglia di Bunker Hill il 17 giugno 1775. L'ultima parte del video racconta la firma del trattato di pace a Versailles e la firma della dichiarazione di indipendenza il 4 luglio 1776.

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Master contenuto in English Bridge, di Cinzia Medaglia. La Rivoluzione Americana, combattuta fra il 1775 e il 1783, attraverso riprese a Boston MA, in particolare nel parco Boston Commons e nei due estremi del Freedom Trail, il percorso della libertà che unisce la Massachusetts State House e Bunker Hill Monument, costruito dove si svolse la battaglia di Bunker Hill il 17 giugno 1775.

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phylosophical foundations: THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

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phylosophical foundations: THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

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The fight for the right to vote in the United States - Nicki Beaman Griffin

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In the United States today, if you are over eighteen, a citizen, and the resident of a state, you can vote (with some exceptions). So, how have voting rights changed since the first election in 1789? Nicki Beaman Griffin outlines the history of the long fight for a more inclusive…

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A History of Voting Rights | The New York Times

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The Magna Carta, or "Great Charter," was arguably the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today in the English-speaking world.

In 1215, after King John of England violated a number of ancient laws and customs by which England had been governed, his subjects forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which enumerates what later came to be thought of as human rights. Among them was the right of the church to be free from governmental interference, the rights of all free citizens to own and inherit property and to be protected from excessive taxes. It established the right of widows who owned property to choose not to remarry, and established principles of due process and equality before the law. It also contained provisions forbidding bribery and official misconduct.

Widely viewed as one of the most important legal documents in the development of modern democracy, the Magna Carta was a crucial turning point in the struggle to establish freedom.

The next recorded milestone in the development of human rights was the Petition of Right, produced in 1628 by the English Parliament and sent to Charles I as a statement of civil liberties. Refusal by Parliament to finance the king's unpopular foreign policy had caused his government to exact forced loans and to quarter troops in subjects' houses as an economy measure. Arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for opposing these policies had produced in Parliament a violent hostility to Charles and to George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. The Petition of Right, initiated by Sir Edward Coke, was based upon earlier statutes and charters and asserted four principles: (1) No taxes may be levied without consent of Parliament, (2) No subject may be imprisoned without cause shown (reaffirmation of the right of habeas corpus), (3) No soldiers may be quartered upon the citizenry, and (4) Martial law may not be used in time of peace.

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Magna Carta, Petition of Right, History of Civil Liberties : United for Human Rights

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Read further into the history of freedoms and civil liberties founded in the Magna Carta, an English document outlawing absolute monarchy while establishing religious, property and financial rights, and the Petition of Right, created taxation and representation laws for citizens and the military.

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Whose Vote Counts, Explained | Full Episode | Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio | Netflix

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How does an election work? Watch this speedy one-minute guide to the UK's General Election and you'll be an election expert!

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The ETF is developing a new platform to replace Excellence Gateway, and this will come online at the same time as Excellence Gateway comes offline, in spring / early summer 2023. Most ESOL resources will be transferred. A few items will be retired, but a list will be provided in advance.

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Gunpowder Plot – Stories from Parliament (Part 1 of 2)

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Houses of History - Explore the story of Parliament and democracy

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Simon de Montfort and the emergence of Parliament

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Magna Carta and the emergence of Parliament

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What did democracy really mean in Athens? - Melissa Schwartzberg

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1. WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HAVE YOUR RIGHTS TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT?

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1. WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HAVE YOUR RIGHTS TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT?

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What Is Democracy for Kids | Democracy explained for students

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There are many forms of government in the world. One of the most common forms is democracy. In this lesson you will see what it takes to make a democracy work and why it gives its people so many freedoms and protections.

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THE LONG ROAD TO DEMOCRACY- THE MAGNA CHARTA

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THE LONG ROAD TO DEMOCRACY- THE MAGNA CHARTA

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UK history institutions_get into business

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UK HISTORY... FROM THE ORIGINS TO THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE TRIUMPH OF PARLIAMENT

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UK HISTORY... FROM THE ORIGINS TO THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE TRIUMPH OF PARLIAMENT

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English Civil War: Crash Course European History #14