Law of the land

Law of the land is a legal term referring to all of the laws in force within a country or region, covering both statutory law and common law; its Latin equivalent is lex terrae. The phrase gained lasting prominence through clause 39 of Magna Carta in 1215, which protected individuals from being deprived of liberty except by the lawful judgment of their peers or by the law of the land, establishing that even a monarch had to govern within legal limits. More than five hundred years later, American founders drew directly on this language: it appears in several state constitutions, including those of Virginia, North Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, New York, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, in the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, and most prominently in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, which declares the Constitution the supreme law of the land. Jurists have long debated the phrase's exact scope; Lord Coke argued it includes common law, statute law, and custom, while later interpretation has tied it closely to due process protections that shape constitutional rights.