The small Greek city-state, ancient Athens, from about the eighth century BC was the first society to be based mostly on broad inclusion of its citizenry, excluding girls and the slave class. However, Athens had no legal science or single word for “law”, relying instead on the three-way distinction between divine law (thémis), human decree and custom (díkē). Yet Ancient Greek law contained major constitutional improvements within the improvement of democracy. Ancient Egyptian law, dating as far again as 3000 BC, was based on the concept of Ma’at and characterised by tradition, rhetorical speech, social equality and impartiality. By the 22nd century BC, the ancient Sumerian ruler Ur-Nammu had formulated the primary law code, which consisted of casuistic statements (“if … then …”).
Class is in session as Sam attends Sanctions 101 with Cardiff Garcia, host of The New Bazaar, and Stacey Vanek Smith, co-host of The Indicator. They talk …