Written Rules and Settled Wars: Twelve Documents from Ur-Nammu to the Rome Statute

The oldest known surviving law code, from Mesopotamia, written in Sumerian on clay tablets and dated to about 2100 BC. It states its ruler's aim to remove enmity and violence and establish justice in the realm, so the oldest surviving code opens with a claim about justice.

A Babylonian legal text composed around 1753 BC in Old Babylonian Akkadian, and the longest and best preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. The main copy is a basalt stele 2.25 meters tall, now in the Louvre, which has shown it since 1904.

Promulgated in 449 BC as the foundation of Roman law, it gathered earlier Roman legal custom into a body of law displayed in public. No original survives; later Roman writers quote it in a modernised form of Latin, which is how we know it.

Drafted by Major General John Lambert in 1653, it was the first constitution of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and the first codified written constitution used in England. Rule by a written frame, not custom alone, moves from codes of law to constitutions here.

A series of treaties signed at Rijswijk in the Dutch Republic between 20 September and 30 October 1697, ending the Nine Years' War between France and the Grand Alliance. Note that the Peace is a series of treaties, not a single text.

Signed on 10 February 1763 by Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement, it ended the Seven Years' War after the victory of Great Britain and Prussia over France and Spain. It is the peace that closed that war on written terms.

Drafted in 1776 to proclaim the inherent rights of men, including the right to reform or abolish an inadequate government. It influenced the United States Declaration of Independence later that year and the Bill of Rights in 1789, so a statement of rights became a model for others.

Signed on 24 December 1814 at Ghent and in effect from February 1815 once ratified, it ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It restored relations to the state before the war and returned the borders of June 1812, a peace that changed no boundary.

Signed at Frankfurt on 10 May 1871 by the German Empire and the French Third Republic, it ended the Franco-Prussian War. The original is held in the archive of the Otto von Bismarck Foundation at Friedrichsruh.

Signed in Beijing on 7 September 1901 between the Qing Empire and the Eight-Nation Alliance, joined by Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands, after the intervention that put down the Boxer Rebellion. It is counted among China's unequal treaties, a peace imposed on the defeated side.

Signed on 27 November 1919 at Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris, between the victorious Allies of the First World War and Bulgaria. It required Bulgaria to cede territory, and the signing was held in the town hall at Neuilly.

Adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and in force from 1 July 2002, it is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court and fixes its functions, jurisdiction and structure. It is deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General, and the trail ends on a written rule meant to bind individuals, not only states.