Talk:Nulla poena sine lege

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[edit] Article 169

I have deleted the following line: "This concept is in Article 169 in the Constitution of Iran", since in almost every constitution or criminal law the rule of nulla poena sine lege is known or codified. Averroes 20:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genocide

I am removing this phrase:

A similar principle has appeared in the recent decades with regard to crimes of genocide, allowing the Nuremberg trials to take place.

Those tried for taking part in the Holocust were tried for crimes against humanity not genocide. The term "crimes against humanity" was first used in relation to international relations in 1915. One can argue that the London Charter introduced retrospective law, but it was not the crime of gencide. Further the decleration at the Moscow Conference (1943) had made it clear to those involved in Nazi atricities that: "evidence of atrocities, massacres and cold-blooded mass executions which are being perpetrated by Hitlerite forces in many of the countries they have overrun and from which they are now being steadily expelled", that Germans would be sent back to the countries where they had committed their crimes and "judged on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged"; and as for those Germans, whose criminal offenses had no particular geographical localization, they would be punished by joint decision of the government of the Allies. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Code of Conduct

This topic, along with the ex post facto law topic come into focus in the context of a code of conduct/code of honor.

For example, in the US military the West Point Academy 'Cadet Code of Honor' is very succinct: "A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do."

From these simple but broad prohibitions, one could argue that a cadet ~should~ reason that covertly sleeping with another man's wife violates, in some sense, all four of the prohibitions. But a literalist would say that since the code doesn't mention sleeping with another man's wife as a violation, that no punishment can be imposed on someone who acts in such manner. That any attempt to do so would be imposing an ex post facto law on said behavior.

How does this topic relate to a very fluid, even vague statement of "law" (such as a code of honor, or a code of conduct) which is intentionally not specific, not iterated or cataloged or itemized, which consciously makes no attempt to be exhaustive?

Is there an 'escape hatch' that puts "codes of conduct" or "honor codes" outside of "ordinary law" and which exempts this form of governing statement or rule from the literalism of the ex post facto stricture? --Hmvalois 07:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)