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First , criminal laws must adequately define the conduct sought to be prohibited . Investigative techniques and criminal laws must be developed and continuously updated to combat the sophisticated nature of crime and corruption in today s world . The empirical laws must be the result of but a few instances , since few nations have ever attained at all , and still fewer by their own independent development , a high stage of social progress . A bedrock precept of Anglo-American jurisprudence , the rule of lenity posits that requisites for applying a criminal sanction must be rigorously enforced and that ambiguities in criminal laws must be resolved in favor of defendants . Most liberals thinkers reject this view , but any liberal defense of antidiscrimination laws must cite considerations sufficiently strong to override the infringements on freedom of association that the laws involve . Consequently , the common , or unwritten law must have been in a state of continual change , from the first institution of parliaments , in the thirteenth century , to the present time ; a period of more than five hundred years ; two centuries whereof have elapsed since the first migrations were made to America , under the authority of charters granted by the crown of England ; though not quite half a century passed over , between the establishment of the colony of Georgia , and the declaration of independence . " 58 International law specifies that any such criminal laws must be publicized before they are enforced . Now the principle sought can only be this : as universal laws of nature have their ground in our understanding , which prescribes them to nature ( though only according to the universal concept of it as nature ) , particular empirical laws must be regarded , in respect of that which is left undetermined in them by these universal laws , according to a unity such as they would have if an understanding ( though it be not ours ) had supplied them for the benefit of our cognitive faculties , so as to render possible a system of experience according to particular natural laws . The question as to whether a rule of primary or secondary law must apply , even if the governing law is that of a non-member state , is exclusively a matter of interpretation of Community instruments under the supervision of the Court of Justice in question , and cannot in any way be imposed by regulation .