9,901 articles
Columbine effect
The Columbine effect: how the 1999 Columbine High School massacre (13 killed) became a blueprint for later school shooters, spawned Columbiner and True Crime online subcultures, and drove lockdown drills and school security changes.
Comando Vermelho
Comando Vermelho (Red Command, CV), Brazil's oldest criminal organization, founded in 1979 in the Ilha Grande Cândido Mendes prison through contact between common and political prisoners; based in Rio de Janeiro, with about 30,000 members, network structure, and rivalry with the PCC.
Commerce Clause
The Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) grants Congress power to regulate interstate, foreign, and tribal commerce. Key cases: Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), Wickard, Lopez (1995), NFIB v. Sebelius; includes the dormant Commerce Clause limit on states.
Commercial law
Commercial law governs business and commercial transactions, from the medieval lex mercatoria to national codes like the French Code de Commerce and the US Uniform Commercial Code, and international harmonization by UNCITRAL and UNIDROIT.
Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
CCAMLR (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources) is the Hobart-based commission, established 1982 under the Canberra Convention, managing Southern Ocean toothfish, icefish, and krill fisheries by consensus among 27 Members.
Commissions of inquiry in Canada
A commission of inquiry in Canada is an ad hoc body created by government under the Inquiries Act to investigate public concerns, with findings not legally binding.
Common carrier
Common carrier: a person or enterprise transporting passengers or goods for a fee while holding its service open to the general public, also called public carrier. Distinguished from contract and private carriers by the duty to serve all comers and heightened liability.
Common intention constructive trust
A common intention constructive trust is a trust of land arising by operation of law to enforce a shared, unrecorded intention about beneficial ownership, backed by detrimental reliance.
Common law
Common law (English common law) is the uncodified legal tradition based on binding judicial precedent, originating in post-1066 England and spreading through former British colonies, distinguished from codified civil law systems.
Common Rule
The Common Rule is the United States federal regulation setting ethical standards and informed consent requirements for research involving human subjects, first adopted in 1991.
Common scold
Common scold (communis rixatrix): an English common law nuisance offence against habitual scolding women, punished by the cucking or ducking stool; abolished in England and Wales in 1967 but prosecuted in the US until 1972.
Common-law marriage
Common-law marriage, or informal marriage, is a valid marriage formed without a license or ceremony by mutual consent, cohabitation, and holding out as married; only about nine U.S. states and D.C. allow new ones, and all states recognize those validly formed elsewhere.
Communications Decency Act
Communications Decency Act (CDA), Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, US law regulating online indecency; its censorship provisions were struck down in Reno v. ACLU (1997), while Section 230 survives as platform liability immunity.
Communist Control Act of 1954
The Communist Control Act of 1954 (P.L. 637, 68 Stat. 775) outlawed the Communist Party USA, stripped it of legal rights, and subjected members to Internal Security Act penalties; never repealed, never directly ruled on by the Supreme Court.
Community crime prevention
Community crime prevention is the organized involvement of residents, in partnership with police or local organizations, in activities to reduce neighborhood crime, including neighborhood watch schemes and citizen patrols.
Community policing
Community policing: a philosophy in which police build partnerships with residents and use problem-solving to address crime, disorder, and fear. Evidence shows gains in satisfaction and legitimacy but limited crime effects; problem-oriented variants reduce crime more.
Community property
Community property is a marital property regime, of Spanish civil-law origin, under which assets acquired during marriage belong equally to both spouses. Nine US states plus Guam and Puerto Rico mandate it; Alaska, South Dakota, and Tennessee allow opt-in.
Community service
Community service, also known as community payback, is unpaid work for the community imposed as a criminal penalty, typically instead of a prison sentence; it began in 1960s California.
Commutation (law)
Commutation (law): executive clemency reducing a criminal sentence, such as death to life imprisonment, without forgiving the offense or erasing the conviction; distinct from pardon and reprieve, granted by presidents and governors.
Companies Act 2013
The Companies Act, 2013 (कंपनी अधिनियम, 2013), Act No. 18 of 2013, is India's principal company law statute, replacing the Companies Act, 1956 with 470 sections, One Person Companies, mandatory CSR spending of 2% of average net profits, and independent-director requirements.
Companies House
Companies House is the UK's executive agency registrar of companies, established by the 1844 Act and based in Cardiff. It incorporates and dissolves limited companies, runs the free public company register and API, and is rolling out mandatory identity verification from 18 November 2025 under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.
Company secretary
Company secretary (also corporate secretary, board secretary): senior officer handling board administration, statutory compliance, and governance advice to the board; role evolved from 1887 'mere servant' to strategic governance professional under codes like the UK Corporate Governance Code 2024.
Comparative criminal justice systems
Comparative criminal justice systems is the study of how countries' legal systems differ in investigation, trial, and punishment, from inquisitorial and adversarial models to incarceration rates that vary sixteen-fold.
Comparative defamation case law
Comparative defamation case law is the study of how different legal systems resolve defamation, comparing burdens of proof, defenses, and damages across landmark cases like Sullivan and Lingens.
Comparative family law
Comparative family law is the comparison of family-law rules of two or more jurisdictions, covering marriage, divorce, property, and children, and differs from international family law, which handles cross-border rules.
Comparative intellectual property law
Comparative intellectual property law is the study of how copyright, patent, and trademark rules differ across jurisdictions, from first-to-file versus first-to-use trademark systems to TRIPS flexibilities.
Comparative trust law
Comparative trust law studies how trust-like fiduciary institutions, in which property is administered by a fiduciary for others, operate across legal systems, asking whether the devices used are functionally equivalent.
Comparing crime across countries
Comparing crime across countries means using national statistics and victimisation surveys to compare crime and safety between nations, an approach criminologists consider reliable mainly for intentional homicide because laws and recording practices differ.
Comparison of European road signs
Comparison of European road signs: national systems measured against the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, its 1971 European Agreement and 1973 Road Markings Protocol, and the reservations and national choices, such as Irish yellow diamond warnings, that make signs differ.
Compassionate release
Compassionate release, under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), lets federal courts reduce prison terms for extraordinary and compelling reasons; the First Step Act of 2018 allowed prisoner-filed motions, and Amendment 814 (2023) defined six qualifying categories.