9,901 articles
South Korean nationality law
South Korean nationality law, the Nationality Act (국적법) of 20 December 1948, defines who is a Korean national: descent-based jus sanguinis, naturalization tracks, strict single-nationality rules with limited exceptions.
South Seas Mandate (南洋群島)
The South Seas Mandate (Nanyo-Gunto) was the League of Nations Class C mandate over former German Pacific islands north of the equator, granted to Japan in 1920, administered by the Nanyo-cho from 1922, retained after Japan's 1935 League withdrawal, and succeeded in 1947 by the US-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty
The Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, or Bangkok Treaty, is a multilateral agreement signed in 1995 by ten states. It binds them not to develop or use nuclear weapons.
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility
The Southern Ohio Correctional Facility is a maximum-security men's prison in Lucasville, Ohio, opened in 1972 to replace the Ohio Penitentiary and site of the 1993 Lucasville riot.
Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Alabama-based civil rights nonprofit founded 1971 by Morris Dees and Joe Levin; known for impact litigation and hate group tracking, and in 2026 under a federal wire fraud and money laundering indictment it denies.
Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center
Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center (SBCC) is a maximum-security state prison for men in Lancaster, Massachusetts, opened in 1998 and run by the Massachusetts Department of Correction.
Sovereign immunity
Sovereign immunity: the rule that states, their property, officials, and serving heads of state are shielded from foreign courts without consent. Covers jurisdictional versus execution immunity, the 1952 US shift to the restrictive theory, the 1976 FSIA and its exceptions, and the 2004 UN Convention.
Sovereign immunity in the United States
Sovereign immunity in the United States bars suits against the federal government, states, and foreign states without consent, shaped by the Eleventh Amendment, Hans, Seminole Tribe, Alden, and the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
Sovereign state
Sovereign state: a political entity exercising complete sovereignty over internal and external affairs. Defined by the 1933 Montevideo criteria, declaratory versus constitutive recognition theories, and contested cases like Taiwan, Kosovo, and Palestine.
Sovereignty and recognition in colonial and decolonizing international law
Sovereignty and recognition in colonial and decolonizing international law is a historical critique arguing that sovereignty doctrine was forged in the colonial confrontation between European and non-European worlds.
Soviet detective fiction
Soviet detective fiction is crime literature produced in the USSR from the 1920s to the 1980s, centered on the militsiya procedural about ordinary Soviet police rather than lone detectives.
Soviet–Estonian Mutual Assistance Treaty
Soviet–Estonian Mutual Assistance Treaty (Bases Treaty), signed 28 September 1939 in Moscow by Karl Selter and Vyacheslav Molotov; leased Saaremaa, Hiiumaa, and Paldiski bases to the USSR, capped Soviet troops at 25,000, and preceded Estonia's 1940 occupation.
Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty
The Soviet–Latvian Mutual Assistance Treaty (Savstarpējās palīdzības pakts), signed October 5, 1939, forced Latvia to lease Soviet naval and air bases at Liepāja and Ventspils for 25,000 troops; the USSR used alleged breach of the pact to occupy Latvia in June 1940.
Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty
The Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty, signed in Moscow in 1939, transferred the Vilnius region to Lithuania in exchange for Soviet bases, a pact that restricted Lithuanian sovereignty.
Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty
Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty, also called the Moscow Peace Treaty (Lietuvos–Sovietų Rusijos taika), signed 12 July 1920: Soviet Russia recognized Lithuanian independence, fixed borders including Vilnius, promised 3 million gold rubles, but the secret Red Army passage annex and Poland's 1920 seizure of Vilnius undermined it.
Space law
Space law governs activities in outer space, centered on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and later UN treaties plus national licensing regimes; key rules bar national appropriation and orbiting WMD, while debris, megaconstellations, and lunar resources expose gaps.
Space Liability Convention
The Space Liability Convention (1972) is a UN treaty elaborating Outer Space Treaty Article VII: launching States are absolutely liable for surface and aircraft damage, fault-based in space. Its only known claim, Cosmos 954, settled for C$3 million in 1981.
Spandau Prison
Spandau Prison, the Allied war-crimes prison in West Berlin, held the seven Nuremberg convicts from 1947 under four-power administration; Rudolf Hess, its last inmate, died there in 1987 and the prison was demolished.
Spanish Match
The Spanish Match was the proposed early-17th-century marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the Spanish Infanta María, negotiated on and off from 1603 until its collapse in 1624.
Spanish nationality law
Spanish nationality law governs who is a Spanish national, acquisition by option, carta de naturaleza, residence, and possession of status, residence periods of 1 to 10 years, and loss rules, plus the Democratic Memory Law grandchildren route.
Spanking
Spanking is a form of corporal punishment in which the hand is used to slap a child on the buttocks, typically by parents for discipline.
Sparkle L. Sooknanan
Sparkle Leah Sooknanan, born 1983 in Trinidad and Tobago, is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States district judge in the District of Columbia.
Speakers' Corner
Speakers' Corner is the open-air public speaking site at the north-east edge of London's Hyde Park near Marble Arch, established by the 1872 Parks Regulation Act after the 1866–1867 Reform League protests; anyone may speak on any lawful subject, traditionally on Sundays.
Special agent
Special agent: sworn US criminal-investigator title used since 1872 in the Justice Department and by FBI, DEA, ATF, IRS-CI, Secret Service, and Diplomatic Security Service agents with arrest and warrant authority.
Special Committee on Decolonization
The Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24, Committee of 24) is a UN General Assembly subsidiary organ, established 1961 by resolution 1654 (XVI), monitoring implementation of the 1960 Declaration on decolonization across the 17 remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories.
Special Court for Sierra Leone
The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) was a UN–Sierra Leone treaty-based hybrid tribunal, signed 16 January 2002, trying those bearing greatest responsibility for civil war crimes since 30 November 1996; four cases, nine convictions, closed December 2013.
Special Immigration Appeals Commission
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) is a UK tribunal under the 1997 Act hearing appeals against national security immigration and citizenship decisions, using special advocates and closed material, with further appeals on points of law to the Court of Appeal or Court of Session.
Special Marriage Act, 1954
Special Marriage Act, 1954 (विशेष विवाह अधिनियम, 1954): India's secular civil-marriage statute, enacted 9 October 1954 replacing the 1872 Act. Key facts: open to any citizen regardless of religion without conversion; Section 4 conditions (21/18 ages, monogamy); 30-day public notice under Sections 5-7; succession under Indian Succession Act 1925 unless both parties are Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, or Jain.
Special Panels for Serious Crimes (East Timor)
Special Panels for Serious Crimes: hybrid UNTAET panels at Dili District Court (2000–2005) that tried 1999 East Timor violence cases with one Timorese and two international judges.
Specialist legal practice
Specialist legal practice is the organization of lawyers' work around a defined field of law like tax or intellectual property, through certification, self-designation, or market specialization.