Файл:The Lexington Principles on the Rights of Detainees.pdf

English: The Lexington Principles on the Rights of Detainees is a body of international due process principles reflecting the prevailing transnational norms in the area of detainee treatment. These Principles are based on international human rights law, but have been specially designed to facilitate internalization into the domestic legal systems of the United States and other common law countries. The relevant international norms have been reformulated into the familiar common law due process framework in order to provide the linguistic bridge necessary to ease domestication by lawyers and jurists in common law countries that have been conditioned to attach special significance to rights couched in the language of “due process.”

Central to the Lexington Principles is the uncontroversial proposition that there is a fundamental human right to physical liberty afforded under both the U.S. Constitution and international law, and this right is protected by the guarantee that no deprivations will occur without due process of law. This fundamental point of mutuality is then used as the anchor for all other rights contained in the instrument which are treated as essentially derivative of this central guarantee.

To further assist internalization by domestic judiciaries, these principles also propose the recognition of a new “Transnational Incorporation Doctrine” under which the most fundamental aspects of international human rights law could be constitutionally domesticated through incorporation into the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in a manner similar to the way the federal Bill of Rights was applied to the states. This suggestion is intended to simplify the jurisprudential process ahead and reduce subjectivity as judges begin to determine which due process rights extend beyond America’s borders.