Tobia, Kevin P.GUILHERME DA FRANCA COUTO FERNANDES DE ALMEIDADonelson, RaffDranseika, ViliusKneer, MarkusStrohmaier, NiekBystranowski, PiotrDolinina, KristinaJanik, BartoszKeo, SothieLauraityt, EgleLiefgreen, AlicePróchnicki, MaciejRosas, AlejandroHannikainen, Ivar R.2024-09-162024-09-1620211551-6709https://repositorio.insper.edu.br/handle/11224/6962Despite pervasive variation in the content of laws, legal theorists and anthropologists have arguedthat laws share certain abstract features and even speculated that law may be a human universal. Inthe present report, we evaluate this thesis through an experiment administered in 11 different coun-tries. Are there cross-cultural principles of law? In a between-subjects design, participants (N = 3,054)were asked whether there could be laws that violate certain procedural principles (e.g., laws applied retrospectively or unintelligible laws), and also whether there are any such laws. Confirming our pre-registered prediction, people reported that such laws cannot exist, but also (paradoxically) that there aresuch laws. These results document cross-culturally and –linguistically robust beliefs about the conceptof law which defy people’s grasp of how legal systems function in practice.Digital14 p.enConceptsExperimental jurisprudenceHuman universalsLon FullerModalityNaturallawjournal article10.1111/cogs.13024