A droit ( French for ''

right Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...

'' or ''

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

'') is a legal title, claim or due.

Droits of admiralty (English law)

The term is used in

English law English law is the common law list of national legal systems, legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly English criminal law, criminal law and Civil law (common law), civil law, each branch having its own Courts of England and Wales, ...

in the phrase " droits of admiralty". This refers to certain customary rights or perquisites, formerly belonging to the Lord High Admiral, but now to the crown, for public purposes and paid into the

Exchequer In the Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil service of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's Exchequer, or just the Exchequer, is the accounting process of central government and the government's ''Transaction account, current account'' (i.e., mon ...

. These ''droits'' (see also wreck) consisted of flotsam, jetsam, ligan - (goods or wreckage on the sea bed that is attached to a buoy so that it can be recovered),

treasure Treasure (from from Greek ''thēsauros'', "treasure store") is a concentration of wealth — often originating from ancient history — that is considered lost and/or forgotten until rediscovered. Some jurisdictions legally define what constit ...

, deodand, derelict (maritime), within the admiral's jurisdiction; all

fines Fines may refer to: *Fines, Andalusia, Spanish municipality *Fine (penalty) * Fine, a dated term for a Lease#Leases_of_land, premium on a lease of land, a large sum the tenant pays to commute (lessen) the rent throughout the term * Fines, ore or oth ...

, forfeitures,

ransom Ransom refers to the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release. It also refers to the sum of money paid by the other party to secure a captive's freedom. When ransom means "payment", the word ...

recognizance In some common law nations, a recognizance is a conditional pledge of money undertaken by a person before a court which, if the person defaults, the person or their sureties will forfeit that sum. It is an obligation of record, entered into before ...

s and pecuniary punishments; all

sturgeon Sturgeon (from Old English ultimately from Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European *''str̥(Hx)yón''-) is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the ...

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully Aquatic animal, aquatic placental mammal, placental marine mammals. As an informal and Colloquialism, colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea ...

porpoise Porpoises () are small Oceanic dolphin, dolphin-like cetaceans classified under the family Phocoenidae. Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals and Beluga whale, belugas than to the Oceanic dolphi ...

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...

s, grampuses and such large fishes; all ships and goods of the enemy coming into any creek, road or port, by durance or mistake; all ships seized at sea, salvage, etc., with the share of prizes such shares being afterwards called "tenths", in imitation of the French, who gave their admiral a ''droit de dixième''. The droits of admiralty were definitely surrendered for the benefit of the public by Prince George of Denmark, when Lord High Admiral of England in 1702.

American law The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as v ...

does not recognize any such droits, and the disposition of captured property is regulated by various acts of

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

Other legal connexions (French law, etc.)

The term ''droit'' is also used in various legal connexions (i.e.,

French law French law has a dual jurisdictional system comprising private law (), also known as judicial law, and public law (). Judicial law includes, in particular: * () * Criminal law () Public law includes, in particular: * Administrative law ( ...

), such as the ''droit'' of angary, the ''droit d'achat'' ( right of pre-emption) in the case of

contraband Contraband (from Medieval French ''contrebande'' "smuggling") is any item that, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. It comprises goods that by their nature are considered too dangerous or offensive in the eyes of the leg ...

, the

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

''droit de bris'' (see wreck), the '' droit de regale'' or ancient royal privilege of claiming the revenues and patronage of a vacant

bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

, and the feudal droites of seignory generally. In French, ''droit'' can mean ''the whole body of the

'', as in the motto " dieu et mon droit", which is to say "God and my whole body of Law." ''Droit d'auteur'' is a term for

French copyright law The ''droit d'auteur'' or French authors' rights law, is in the jurisdiction of France a set of exclusive prerogatives available to a creator over his or her intellectual work, as part of the intellectual property area of law. It has been very infl ...

Notes

References

*{{EB1911, wstitle=Droit , volume=8 , page=588 Law of France Rights English legal terminology Prince George of Denmark