<P> An American constitutional lawyer might well be surprised by the elusiveness of references to the term' due process of law' in the general body of English legal writing...Today one finds no space devoted to due process in Halsbury's Laws of England, in Stephen's Commentaries, or Anson's Law and Custom of the Constitution . The phrase rates no entry in such works as Stroud's Judicial Dictionary or Wharton's Law Lexicon . </P> <P> Two similar concepts in contemporary English law are natural justice, which generally applies only to decisions of administrative agencies and some types of private bodies like trade unions, and the British constitutional concept of the rule of law as articulated by A.V. Dicey and others . However, neither concept lines up perfectly with the American conception of due process, which presently contains many implied rights not found in the ancient or modern concepts of due process in England . </P> <P> The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution each contain a Due Process Clause . Due process deals with the administration of justice and thus the Due Process Clause acts as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the government outside the sanction of law . The Supreme Court of the United States interprets the clauses as providing four protections: procedural due process (in civil and criminal proceedings), substantive due process, a prohibition against vague laws, and as the vehicle for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights . </P> <P> Various countries recognize some form of due process under customary international law . Although the specifics are often unclear, most nations agree that they should guarantee foreign visitors a basic minimum level of justice and fairness . Some nations have argued that they are bound to grant no more rights to aliens than they do to their own citizens, the doctrine of national treatment, which also means that both would be vulnerable to the same deprivations by the government . With the growth of international human rights law and the frequent use of treaties to govern treatment of foreign nationals abroad, the distinction, in practice, between these two perspectives may be disappearing . </P>

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