Is natural law a type of positive law? I have asked about the philosophical definition of &quot;natural&quot; and &quot;naturalness&quot; in the Philosophy Stackexchange https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/91989/formal-definition-of-natural-and-naturalness-for-the-ethics-and-moral-philos and I have demonstrated in my question that the terms &quot;natural&quot; has no philosophical meaning. Terms &quot;natural&quot; can have only sociological, positive meaning that is accepted or defined in some special groups of society. While I am still waiting for the professional answers for my philosophy question, I can assume that they will strongly argue against any philosophical meaning of the term &quot;natural&quot;. So, if the content of &quot;natural&quot; is created by some societal groups, then should we consider the natural law as the special case of positive law? p.s. I kindly invite you to contribute an answer to my philosophy question if you have anything meaningful to say on that.
Definitions The online free version (2nd ed) of Black's Law Dictionary defines&quot;positive law&quot; as: Legislature that consists of guidelines, statutes and codes which are imposed upon a country. It is dissimilar to natural law. The same work defines &quot;natural law&quot; as: A rule of conduct arising out of the natural relations of human beings, established by the Creator, and existing prior to any positive precept Webster. The foundation of this law is placed by the best writers in the will of God, discovered by right reason, and aided by divine revelation ; and its principles, when applicable, apply with equal obligation to individuals and to nations. 1 Kent, Comm. 2, note; Id 4, note. See Jus NATURALE. The rule and dictate of right reason, showing the moral deformity or moral necessity there is in any act, according to its suitableness or unsuitableness to a reasonable nature. Tayl. Civil Law, 99. This expression, “natural law,” or jus naturale, was largely used in the philosophical speculations of the Roman jurists of the Antonine age, and was intended to denote a system of rules and principles for the guidance of human conduct which, independently of enacted law or of the systems peculiar to any one people, might be discovered by the rational intelligence of man, and would be found to grow out of and conform to his nature, meaning by that word his whole mental, moral, and physical constitution. ... The page &quot;THE TERM &quot;POSITIVE LAW&quot; from the US Office of the Law Revision Counsel reads: When used with respect to the United States Code—as in positive law codification or a positive law title of the Code–the term &quot;positive law&quot; has a special and particular meaning. In general, however, especially in legal philosophy, the term &quot;positive law&quot; is used more broadly. There is overlap to be sure. But the meaning of the term as used generally is not identical to the meaning of the term as used with respect to the Code, and the distinction must be understood to avoid confusion[1] In general, the term &quot;positive law&quot; connotes statutes, i.e., law that has been enacted by a duly authorized legislature.[2] As used in this sense, positive law is distinguishable from natural law. The term &quot;natural law&quot;, especially as used generally in legal philosophy, refers to a set of universal principles and rules that properly govern moral human conduct. Unlike a statute, natural law is not created by human beings. Rather, natural law is thought to be the preexisting law of nature, which human beings can discover through their capacity for rational analysis. Within the context of the Code, the term &quot;positive law&quot; is used in a more limited sense. A positive law title of the Code is a title that has been enacted as a statute. To enact the title, a positive law codification bill is introduced in Congress. The bill repeals existing laws on a certain subject and restates those laws in a new form–a positive law title of the Code. The titles of the Code that have not been enacted through this process are called non-positive law titles. The LII page &quot;Positive Law&quot; reads: Legal rules enacted by people in a political community. Positive law includes constitutions, statutes, and regulations. Merriam-Webster defines &quot;positive law&quot; as: law established or recognized by governmental authority and contrasts it with &quot;natural law&quot; Subset? The question asks: So, if the content of &quot;natural&quot; is created by some societal groups, then should we consider the natural law as the special case of positive law? **No ** Positive law (a now-traditional mistranslation) is law enacted by some authority, such as a legislature, monarch, council, or dictator. It is law that some group of people are expected to obey. Natural law, on the other hand, is a system of rules, and principles from which those rules are derived, that some person or group thinks are rational, self-consistent, logical, and ought properly to be the basis for law. It may be presented as &quot;self-evident&quot; or &quot;logically essential&quot; or 'universally true&quot; or &quot;divinely inspired&quot;. But different groups have disagreed widely on what the content of such &quot;natural law&quot; is. It often has little or no connection with current positive law Use of Natural Law in Early US Courts and Legislatures From the founding of the US, though roughly the 1840s, natural law was appealed to, some times explicitly, sometimes as the &quot;self-evident basis of law&quot; or some similar term, with some frequency, declining toward the end of that period. Natural law precepts and concepts influenced the drafters of the US Federal Constitution (and perhaps even more the wording of the Declaration of Independence). Perhaps even more significantly, judges, very much including Justices of the US Supreme Court, often drew on Natural Law as a basis, or one basis among several, for their decisions. The Marshall Court and Cultural Change: 1815-1835 by G. Edward White and Gerald Gunther discusses this procvess at soem length, particularly in chapters 2, 9, and 10. That book discusses how the Marshall Court often tended to &quot;pack&quot; constitutional provisions with context an ideas drawn form a natural law background. This was particularly true of the Contract Clause. Natural law concepts were thus read in to constitutional language, particularly in the Dartmouth College case, and in several cases in which state bankruptcy laws were struck down totally or in part. Natural law concepts of &quot;property&quot; and &quot;vested rights&quot; were treated as implicitly present in the Constitution. In other cases decisions were based directly on natural law principles, without first reading these into the constitution. However, in the Taney Court during the period from the 1840s to the 1860s, such use of natural law almost entirely ceased in US courts. Notes [1] Why is there a specialized meaning for the term &quot;positive law&quot; with respect to the United States Code, and why is this term used despite the potential for confusion with the broader meaning given to the identical term in legal philosophy? The answer involves a historical solution to a statutory drafting problem. For generations, Congress has used the term &quot;positive law&quot; when it enacts a title of the Code, as such, into statutory law. For example, section 1 of the Act of July 30, 1947 (1 U.S.C. note prec. 1), provides in relevant part: &quot;Title 1 of the United States Code entitled 'General Provisions', is codified and enacted into positive law . . . .&quot; (emphasis added). Earlier legislative drafters chose the term &quot;positive law&quot; in order to capture the abstract distinction between a title of the Code that has been enacted, as such, versus a title of the Code that has not been enacted, as such, but that sets forth enacted statutes. More literally, this distinction might be expressed as &quot;enacted title&quot; versus &quot;non-enacted title&quot;, but those literal terms are problematic since they incorrectly suggest that provisions set forth in a &quot;non-enacted title&quot; of the Code have not been enacted. Those provisions have been enacted, but as part of a number of freestanding statutes rather than as part of an enacted (positive law) title. The specialized use of the term &quot;positive law&quot; in this situation captures the abstract distinction between the two types of titles in the Code, and the use of the term in this way is now well established. [2] &quot;Positive law typically consists of enacted law—the codes, statutes, and regulations that are applied and enforced in the courts. The term derives from the medieval use of positum (Latin &quot;established&quot;), so that the phrase positive law literally means law established by human authority.&quot; Black's Law Dictionary 1200 (8th ed. 2004).
There isn't likely to be a single universal definition; a word can be defined in different ways for different laws. It's entirely possible that these laws have no more specific definition of "food" than what you've found. In that case, a court interpreting the law would presumably follow the plain meaning rule, under which "ordinary words have their ordinary meaning". Should there be a dispute, a judge would have to determine whether the substance in question is "food" in the ordinary sense of the word (in some cases, judges have cited widely used dictionaries when looking for an "ordinary" definition). They would also try to determine whether the legislature would have intended this particular substance to be covered by the law.
In both common law countries and in civil law countries, words are given their plain meaning for legal purposes, unless there is an express definition to the contrary is provided. And, in Europe, the plain meaning is unambiguous and is what the plain language that you quote says. (The meaning would be ambiguous in the Korean language, or regarding a horse, in contrast.) While there are times when there are age groupings that aren't the plain meaning (e.g. eligibility for youth sports league divisions, school enrollment), it isn't usually stated so plainly. For example, a sports team might have a U10 division which has a defined meaning, but is unlikely to say "for children under age 10" when it really means "for children under age 10 as of the first day of the season".
Are there any underlying reasons behind the nonsensical structure of U.S.C. titles? Is it simply a case of "This is how it's been for awhile, don't fix what isn't broken." or is there more to it than that? First of all, the United States Code is generally not designed to be used by non-lawyers. Second, one of the main ways to research case law interpreting a statute is by doing a boolean search on the code section of that statute. Every time you change a title or section number, you impair the ability of people doing legal research (both judges and lawyers) to find previous case law interpreting the meaning of the statute. Third, you make it much harder to determine when the substance of the provision was originally enacted (e.g. if you want legislative history or to determine which of two conflicting statutory provisions was enacted first) since an annotated statute will often show when the current section was enacted but will not explain what it was derived from. Fourth, the location of a statute within the context of other statutory sections often informs its meaning. Machine gun may have one definition in two or three laws, and a different one in two or three other laws, and there may be yet other laws where machine gun is an undefined term. Moving a statutory section from one part of the code to another could influence the default definition that one uses for an undefined term changing substantive law. Fifth, usually a new codification will also involve some drafting standards, for example, to add gender neutrality or to avoid notoriously ambiguous constructions (like 250 word sentences). But, it isn't at all uncommon for very slight changes like the position of a comma or the formatting of a section with multiple indents, to result in a change of the likely meaning of a somewhat ambiguous statute and it is pretty much impossible to know a priori when a statutory section is ambiguous until you are confronted with a fact pattern that makes the ambiguity in that context clear. This isn't confined to obscure laws of little importance. For example, the question of whether Obamacare applied in states that hadn't set up their own exchanges hinged on these kinds of issues. None of this is to say that you should never recodify the statutes. But, a basically aesthetic motivation that mostly matters to people who make up a tiny portion of the main users of the product (non-lawyers) that poses multiple threats to how statutes will be located using legal research tools, and how it will be interpreted once located, means that reorganizing statutes is not something to be done lightly. In short, there are a lot of serious, substantive costs that can accompany a recodification of a law. As a result, re-codification is most often done only as part of an overall omnibus reform of an area of law on the merits where the interest in being able to track prior interpretive caselaw and determine the original meaning of a statute enacted long ago is at its lowest. Barring the even more ridiculous case of Congress repealing everything and passing the exact same laws again, just under different Titles/Chapters/etc, This is not so ridiculous. Most states have done exactly that one or two times in their history (sometimes more for older states). Also, many newly admitted to the union states also do something similar. For example, the basic template for the statutes in Colorado was the statutes of the state of Illinois. Basically, the first time around, somebody started with an Illinois statute book, eliminated Illinois specific laws and laws that they didn't like, rearranged them and adopted them as the original statutes of the State of Colorado (it may have actually been version 2.0 after a stopgap set of statutes, I don't recall which). Also, most states completely repeal and readopt all of their statutes in codified form on the recommendation of the codifier to a legislative committee, to reflect the acts passed in the previous session, every year. This doesn't involve overhauls really, but in principle is a complete repeal and reenactment. While the federal government has never overhauled the entire U.S. Code in this manner, it has been done at the level of individual titles of the U.S. Code. For example, the most recent major reorganization and overhaul of the structure of the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26) was in 1986. The copyright laws were overhauled in the late 1970s. Both of those accompanied major substantive changes in those areas of law. Another major recodification of many parts of the U.S. Code took place following 9-11 in connection with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which reorganized both the bureaucracy and the associated U.S. Code language associated with dozens of federal agencies. would it be possible for Congress to arbitrarily merge, combine, and delete Titles, and to rearrange the location of laws, definitions, etc? Are there laws/regulations governing this? Yes. Congress can do so any time it wants by passing a bill (it would be the longest bill ever - dozens of volumes long) doing so, and getting the President to sign it. The legislative process would be exactly the same as any other bill.
Is it true that there has never been a single case It is tough to prove a negative. I am not going to completely parse the quote but please notice that the quote states "we couldn't find" and concludes that "it doesn't happen." Given these two pieces of information I do not conclude that there has never been a single case. Rather I conclude that the speaker in your quote could not find a case therefore he concluded that there has never been a single case. It's largely impossible to determine that there has never been a single such case. We can search published opinions but that barely scratches the surface of lawsuits that are filed. It is entirely possible that someone filed a suit which was quickly dismissed. The Act provides a defense, it does not bar lawsuits. Someone might get sick from food and not know where the food came from so they sue the provider. If this happens the provider may raise the Emerson Act as a defense and escape liability to the extent applicable. But again, we will never know because it's impossible to examine every lawsuit filed in this country.
Has it ever been formally established that giving any group, X, a priority of credulity in court over any other group, Y, would amount to granting the group X a title of nobility? No. This has never been formally established. In the 100 years between the ratification of the US Constitution and &quot;Coffins v US&quot;, were there any laws or court decisions which would give any groups de facto nobility over other groups by demanding that their accusations against some other groups must be assumed (if formally stated) true until proven false? Effectively so. For example, the doctrine of res ipsa loquitor works that way and that have been classes of people who have been historically not eligible to serve as witnesses. There are also many procedural circumstances historically (e.g. confessions of judgment) that operate in this manner. Did the argument that this amounted to granting of titles of nobility (which was prohibited) ever come up in any court cases? No.* The core litmus test under the title of nobility prohibition has been that a privilege granted by the government is hereditary and is not simply ordinary property. Without a hereditary component, the title of nobility prohibition does not apply. A lengthy analysis of this jurisprudence can be found in the answer to the Law.SE question &quot;What exactly is a title of nobility?&quot; While this question isn't a true duplicate of that one, the pertinent legal authorities are all discussed in the answers to that question. Obviously, it isn't possible to know every legal argument that was made orally in a trial court or legal brief for all of the United States for all time by everyone and anyone, often leaving no historical record whatsoever. There are no recorded appellate court opinions of which I am aware, however, that engage with this legal argument and rule upon it (which is usually what someone really means when they say &quot;did this argument ever come up in a court case&quot;). Post-Script This post also confounds a &quot;presumption of guilt&quot; with a per se rule regarding credibility determinations, but while both go to the issue of how evidence is evaluated by a tribunal, the two concepts otherwise have nothing in common, and sometimes it isn't clear which is which. For example, in many U.S. jurisdictions, a marriage certificate in existence at the time someone is born, accompanied by the passage of time under a short (often five year) statute of limitations, conclusively prevails on issues of paternity, over a DNA test that is 99.999% certain to be correct as a matter of genetics. You could interpret that as meaning that marriage clerks are always more credible than genetic scientists. But, of course, that isn't really the intent. Instead, this is effectively a substantive rule of law couched as an evidence rule. Similarly, the requirement that real property can only be conveyed in writing could be interpreted as an evidence rule, but it is more realistically viewed as a rule concerning the definition of what a transfer of real property really is that is useful to make a bright line rule. Thus, an oral statement can be a promise to transfer real property, but it doesn't really happen until there is a signed deed or other conveyance. A traffic ticket basically has a presumption of guilt in some jurisdictions, because if you fail to appear you are found guilty in absentia even without evidence, something that is not permitted as a matter of criminal procedure in the U.S. for more serious offenses for which you can be incarcerated. But, on the other hand, if you do appear, the prosecution has the burden of proving that you committed the offense alleged in the ticket. Perhaps the closest example there is to a presumption of guilt (either rebuttable or conclusive, depending upon the statute and facts) is a statutory rape law, which in theory, presumes that someone under a certain age does not have the capacity to consent to intercourse, rendering the offense rape. But, a more straightforward way of understanding those laws is that sex with a minor in the circumstances described is itself illegal without regard to any conclusive presumption of lack of consent. There are also many laws prohibiting certain people from testifying about certain matters in certain circumstances. For example, spouses may not testify against each other in court over a spouse's objection in many kinds of cases. These rights are called &quot;privileges&quot; and are not considered to be titles of nobility. The U.S. Code of Military Justice, intentionally allocates legal rights in these quasi-criminal proceedings in a manner that treats people with different military ranks unequally. Officers have different legal rights than enlisted soldiers, for example. But, since military offices are not hereditary, these rights are not titles of nobility.
We can only guess at what argument he has in mind, but one possible argument is that the standard is unconstitutionally vague, similar to the argument by McDonnell in the recent McDonnell v US (admittedly about a different statute). The vagueness argument was developed in several of the briefs: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/mcdonnell-v-united-states/ The unconstitutional vagueness argument has also been made specifically about 18 USC 793 (e). US v Hitselberger 1:12-cr-00231-RC D.D.C. (2014). The defendant made a motion to dismiss based on constitutional vagueness, but this motion was denied. Private Manning raised the same defence, also unsuccessfully: http://fas.org/sgp/jud/manning/051012-vague.pdf
Part answer to Q1: Is my conceptualization correct? No, insofar that your Points 1 to 4 are all &quot;completely illegal&quot; regardless of how the authorities deal with them, and the rest are not, on the face of it, crimes but presumably civil wrongs (which can be dealt with by, for example, fines or restraint / good behaviour / banning orders etc without one having a &quot;criminal conviction&quot;). Also: if the authorities, for whatever reason, decide against dealing with crime then it hasn't been &quot;decriminalised&quot; - that is the remit of the law makers, not the law enforcers. It's still a crime but with a lower political/ operational etc priority.