Magna Carta was slightly amended in 1225 to include, after “desseised,” the words “of any free tenement or of his liberties or free customs.” When added to the idea of outlawry already in the original version of Magna Carta, this was understood to mean also the right not to be deprived of citizenship rights. As we move slowly toward an international legal order, the key rights will be something like the right to be a subject of international law, and the right not to be allowed to lose one's rights as a “citizen of the world.” Related to these rights is the idea, also from Magna Carta, that something like trial by a jury of one's peers is crucial for the protection of all of one's other rights. I am not proposing that the category of “world citizen” is yet established in practice today, but only that as we move toward such a global order there are various procedural rights that will need to be secured to guarantee to all persons the equal protection of international law. The positive right to be subject to international law, or the negative right not to be excluded from the protection of international law, is of the highest priority for the progressive development of something like global citizenship rights that correspond to human rights.

The idea explored in this chapter is for international courts or other institutions to step in and offer relief when detainees have been allowed to slip between the cracks of extant legal systems or rights-enforcement regimes. In addition, I would also argue that something like trial by jury in criminal matters should be an acknowledged international right, which can be overridden only in rare cases. And this is probably the most controversial of the four proposals to adopt Magna Carta's procedural rights that I have previously put on the table, for there have not yet been major international instruments that have recognized trial by jury as a requirement of criminal proceedings. This was one of the lynchpins of the evolving Magna Carta doctrine. The right to trial by a jury by one's peers is crucial for justice, or so it was thought over time as procedural justice developed in England in the centuries after Magna Carta. Yet today there are no international jury trials, so this right is a long way from being recognized and enforced, although the recently decided US Supreme Court decision in Boumediene seems to be on the road to recognizing this right.