After reading
the preamble we were assigned as a reading, I started to compare the laws we
had read over time to it.
Hammurabi’s code was the first set of laws we looked at this unit and
I’ve come to realize the evolution that has happened from then. Hammurabi’s code is very descriptive
towards certain laws and happens to have very violent punishments for each of
the broken laws. A theme that pops
out between the comparisons is the idea of slavery. In Hammurabi’s code, slavery is mentioned as a normal idea
in about 45 of the laws recorded.
In the preamble, Article 4 strictly states, “No
one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be
prohibited in all their forms.” To
continue on that, the 5th article of the preamble states that, “No
one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment.,” which also beats the violent punishment ideals in Hammurabi’s
code. Then to move on to a more
recent set of laws we discussed or The Division of things (Law of things) we
find a more modern set of laws that are closer to the preamble. One thing that’s different between the
two is that the Division of things goes into a lot more detail on its laws. It also touches on environmental factors
of property, like in law number 12, “Wild
beasts, birds, fish and all animals, which live either in the sea, the air, or
the earth, so soon as they are taken by anyone, immediately become by the law
of nations the property of the captor...” In the preamble, it doesn’t talk
about the ownership of environmental components, which could mean that either
they didn’t think it was important or that they assumed it was moral. Over this unit I’ve really come to
understand the structure of human laws.
I really like this unit, and what activities we went through to strengthen
our knowledge on it. This was a
great way to end the unit and I believe students of future years should focus
on the same.
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