The right to a fair trial is a basic human right and essential for the prevention of the abuse of all other human rights. This is a history of the meaning and use of fair trial based on examples of use from over 100,000 trials and appeal cases heard between the years 1674-2005. For several hundred years fair trial meant a trial that was conducted according to correct procedure. It was a very rare expression. This meaning shifted at the turn of the twentieth century to imply a trial where the rights of a party were observed. Rights such as the right to a public hearing within a reasonable time, to an impartial tribunal, to know the charge and to examine witnesses. This new meaning turned the use of fair trial from a rarity to a commonplace. The history of fair trial has implications for the debate on the nature of human rights. Some say that they are universal and inherent in humans. Others say that they are a new fad. I fall in the latter camp and argue that such a novel and peculiar English right to a fair trial is an unlikely universal. It is a cultural export that spread round the world as English became a world language and English law became one of the two major systems of jurisprudence of the world.
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