Due process

Due process of law is a legal concept that ensures the government will respect all of a person's legal rights instead of just some or most of those legal rights, when the government deprives a person of life, liberty, or property. Due process has also been interpreted as placing limitations on laws and legal proceedings in order to guarantee fundamental fairness, justice, and liberty. The legal systems of many nations embrace some variant of this, such as the concept of fundamental justice in Canada.

International due process

Most countries recognize some form of due process under customary international law. Although the specifics are not clear, there has been consensus that a nation must guarantee foreign visitors a basic minimum level of justice and fairness. Some nations have argued that they were bound to grant no more rights to aliens than they did to their own citizens—the doctrine of national treatment—which also means that both would be vulnerable to the same deprivations by the government. With the growth of international human rights law and the frequent use of treaties to govern treatment of foreign nationals abroad, the distinction in practice between these two perspectives has all but disappeared.

Related Topics:
Customary - International law - National treatment - Human rights - Treaties

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