Law Before Rights: The Code of Hammurabi

Around 1754 BCE, King Hammurabi of Babylon had a collection of about 282 laws carved onto a black stone stele so that his justice could be seen. The code covered trade, property, family, wages and crimes, and it promised that the strong should not oppress the weak. It is important as an early example of publicly displayed, written law, which helps people know the rules in advance. Yet it was not a rights document in the modern sense.

Punishments depended on social class: injuring a noble brought harsher penalties than injuring a commoner or an enslaved person, and slavery itself was accepted. Historians therefore treat the code as evidence that early states valued order and predictable justice, while warning against reading modern equality back into it. Comparing it with later documents shows how ideas of equal treatment developed over time.