Magna Carta and the Law of Nature
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BRENDAN BROWN LECTURE
MAGNA CARTA AND THE LAW OF NATURE
R. H. Helmholz*
INTRODUCTION'
My subject is an appropriate one for a lecture series
established by Brendan F. Brown. From first to last, he was an
advocate and defender of the natural law and its school of
jurisprudence.2 He sparked an interest in the subject among his
students, he wrote books and articles to demonstrate its value,3
and he compiled an historical survey of the subject that remains
useful today.4 Coming to his scholarly maturity in the years
immediately following the Second World War, Professor Brown
was optimistic about the future of this subject. The leaders of
Nazi Germany were being put on trial for the commission of
crimes against humanity, crimes that were widely believed to be
condemned by natural law. With apparent confidence, he was
able to predict a revival in the recognition of natural law within
modern law and jurisprudence.' Not coincidentally with the
* Ruth Wyatt Rosenson Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of
Chicago.
1. These remarks were delivered at the 2016 Brendan Brown Lecture at Loyola
University College of Law, New Orleans, on April 14, 2016.
2. A.E. Papale, A Tribute to Dr. Brendan F. Brown, 21 LOY. L. REV. 803, 804
(1975).
3. See, e.g., BRENDAN FRANcIS BROWN, AROUND THE WORLD IN SEVENTY DAYS:
ON THE BEAM OF THE NATURAL LAW, A PROGRAM FOR PEACE (1976); Brendan F.
Brown, Natural Law: Dynamic Basis of Law and Morals in the Twentieth Century, 31
TUL. L. REV. 491 (1957) (citing ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE I-II 91.2,
93.3, 94.2, 97.3).
4. See BRENDAN F. BROWN, Preface to THE NATURAL LAW READER, at v
(Brendan F. Brown ed., 1960) ([T]he modern resurgence of natural law thinking has
been so great as to propel it to a commanding position in the contemporary
development of the legal order. Natural law jurisprudence, which is based on a moral
attitude toward law, is slowly but surely winning its final battle with the force
concept of law contained in positivism which makes the essence of law depend on the
will of the political sovereign.).
5. See, e.g., Brendan F. Brown, Natural Law and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Case, in
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Magna Carta and the Law of Nature
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