9,901 articles
Reproductive rights
Reproductive rights, also called reproductive choice or reproductive health rights, are recognized human rights to decide freely and responsibly whether and when to have children, first affirmed at the 1968 Teheran conference.
Res ipsa loquitur
Res ipsa loquitur, Latin for "the thing speaks for itself," is a tort-law evidence doctrine from Byrne v Boadle (1863) letting plaintiffs infer negligence when an accident of a type that ordinarily signals negligence occurs under the defendant's control.
Res judicata
Res judicata, also known as claim preclusion, is the legal doctrine that a decided claim cannot be litigated again after a final judgment on the merits.
Rescission (contract law)
Rescission in contract law is the undoing of a contract ab initio, restoring the parties to their pre-contract positions. Also called avoidance, it operates unilaterally, mutually, or by court order, and is barred by affirmation, delay, or failed counter-restitution.
Rescue Agreement
The Rescue Agreement (1968) is the UN space treaty obliging states to notify, rescue, and return astronauts in distress and return space objects; opened for signature April 22, 1968, in force December 3, 1968, elaborating Outer Space Treaty Articles V and VIII.
Research Society of International Law
Research Society of International Law (RSIL), Pakistani international-law think tank founded 1993 by Ahmer Bilal Soofi, based in Lahore and Islamabad; publishes the peer-reviewed RSIL Law Review and the 2021 FATF compliance report.
Residential tenancy regimes by jurisdiction
A residential tenancy regime is the body of law governing private rented homes; this comparison contrasts jurisdictions requiring legal grounds for eviction with those allowing simple notice.
Resolute Support Mission
Resolute Support Mission (RSM), NATO's non-combat train-advise-assist mission in Afghanistan, 2015-2021, successor to ISAF under UN Resolution 2189; hub-and-spoke structure, about 16,000 troops at peak, terminated after the 2021 withdrawal and Afghan government collapse.
Resolution
In law and parliamentary practice, a resolution is a formal expression of opinion or intent voted by an official body, such as a written motion adopted by a deliberative body.
Responsibility to protect
Responsibility to protect (R2P): UN norm adopted unanimously at the 2005 World Summit covering genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity; three pillars; first military use in Libya 2011 (Resolution 1973), while Syria exposed selectivity and veto paralysis.
Restitution in English law
Restitution in English law, also called the law of unjust enrichment, lets a claimant recover a benefit gained at their expense. Recognized in Lipkin Gorman (1991), structured by four questions including the unjust factor and defences.
Restitution of unlawfully exacted taxes
Restitution of unlawfully exacted taxes is the recovery of tax paid to a public authority without legal power to demand it, as in the English Woolwich principle.
Restorative justice
Restorative justice: processes in which consenting victims, offenders, and affected communities resolve matters arising from crime with a trained facilitator. Forms include victim-offender mediation, conferencing, and circles; trial evidence shows modest recidivism reduction and higher victim satisfaction.
Restoule v Canada
Restoule v Canada: Anishinaabe litigation under the 1850 Robinson-Huron and Robinson-Superior Treaties over unincreased $4 annuities; the Supreme Court of Canada (2024 SCC 27) found dishonourable Crown breach and ordered compensation negotiations.
Restraining order
Restraining order, also called protection or protective order: a court order restricting contact and behavior toward a protected person. Key facts: US adoption 1970s, violation rates 7.1–81.3%, permanent orders linked to reduced violence, Lautenberg gun ban.
Restraint of trade
Restraint of trade, also called non-compete law, is the common law doctrine under which covenants restricting a person's trade or business are prima facie void unless reasonable in the interests of the parties and the public, established by Nordenfelt (1894).
Resulting trust
Resulting trust: an equitable trust arising by operation of law (Latin resultare, to bounce back) when an express trust fails, is incompletely disposed of, or a transferor's intent is presumed. Automatic and presumed types; purchase-money variant displaced in English law by common intention constructive trusts.
Retainer agreement
Retainer agreement, also called representation agreement: a lawyer-client compensation contract for reserving availability or future services. Covers general, security, and advance fee retainers, trust account rules, and nonrefundable fee limits.
Retention election
Retention election: unopposed yes-or-no ballot vote on whether a sitting judge keeps a judicial seat, used in about 19 US states, usually after merit selection; also called the Missouri Plan retention step.
Retributive justice
Retributive justice, or retributivism, is a punishment theory holding that wrongdoers deserve proportionate punishment and that inflicting it is intrinsically good; associated with Kant and Hegel, distinguished from revenge, and opposed to consequentialist deterrence theories.
Rettendon murders
Rettendon murders (Essex Boys, Range Rover murders): Tucker, Tate and Rolfe shot dead in a Range Rover at Rettendon, Essex, 6 December 1995; Steele and Whomes convicted in 1998 on supergrass Nicholls's evidence, still disputed.
Return of the Chinese Eastern Railway
Return of the Chinese Eastern Railway (中国长春铁路): the gratis Soviet transfer of the jointly administered Chinese Changchun Railway and all its property to the PRC, completed in Harbin on December 31, 1952 under the February 14, 1950 Sino-Soviet agreement.
Revenge porn
Revenge porn, also called non-consensual pornography or NCII, is the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, part of image-based sexual abuse; distinguished by motive from general NCII and now criminalized by the US Take It Down Act and UK Online Safety Act.
Revised Penal Code
Revised Penal Code (Act No. 3815), the general penal statute of the Philippines, enacted December 8, 1930, effective January 1, 1932; two Books, 20 Titles, 367 Sections; suppletory to special penal laws under Article 10.
Reynhard Sinaga
Reynhard Sinaga, Indonesian serial rapist and Britain's most prolific convicted rapist, drugged and raped men in Manchester 2015-2017; life sentence, 40-year minimum since 2020 appeal.
Reynolds v. United States
Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879), the first Supreme Court Free Exercise Clause ruling, unanimously upheld George Reynolds's Mormon polygamy conviction, holding religious belief cannot excuse criminal conduct under generally applicable law.
Rhesa H. Barksdale
Rhesa H. Barksdale, also known as Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, is an American jurist serving as a senior judge of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals since 2009.
Rhino poaching in Southern Africa
Rhino poaching in Southern Africa is the illegal killing of rhinos for their horns, driven by Asian demand and the main threat to rhinos since 2008.
Rhode Island Supreme Court
Rhode Island Supreme Court, the state's court of last resort: five justices (chief justice plus four), final appeals on law and equity, advisory opinions, merit selection, Licht Judicial Complex, Providence.
Ricardo H. Hinojosa
Ricardo H. Hinojosa is an American jurist, a federal district judge in Texas appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 who served as chief judge from 2009 to 2016.