Ulrik Huber on fundamental laws: a European perspective

The aim of this paper is to give the Frisian jurist Ulrik Huber (1636-94) his place in the European history of the notion of fundamental laws and to enhance our understanding of the history of the rule of law, particularly of the role of fundamental laws therein. In order to do so Huber's notion of fundamental laws will be read against the background of a European sketch of this notion. Huber's ideas on fundamental laws are taken here for a door through which some age-old ideas entered a new stage - and with these age-old ideas a core conception of rule of law thinking had knocked on that door.