Eleven universal, cross-civilizational baselines that underpin all clauses and contextual norms within the Charter. These principles are held to apply across technological levels S0–S6, from primal bands to interstellar civilizations.
Every sentient entity possesses inherent worth that may not be negated by utility, efficiency, or group interest. Dignity is the irreducible foundation of all rights claims within the Charter.
Core domains: Life & Body, Liberty, Criminal Justice
Procedures and outcomes affecting sapient entities must be impartial, proportionate, and non-arbitrary. Both procedural fairness (due process) and substantive fairness (just outcomes) are required.
Core domains: Admin & Judicial, Criminal Justice
All wielders of power — individual, institutional, or algorithmic — are answerable to established norms and subject to independent review. No entity stands above the law it helps to administer.
Core domains: Admin & Judicial, Tech & AI
Sapient entities have the right to direct their own lives, hold beliefs, and express themselves without coercion. Restrictions require necessity, proportionality, and the least-intrusive available means.
Core domains: Liberty & Expression, Privacy & Data
No sapient entity shall be subjected to coercive control over their body, decisions, or future without their informed and voluntary agreement. Consent is the threshold between cooperation and exploitation.
Core domains: Privacy & Data, Family & Community
Any restriction of rights or imposition of burdens must be proportionate to a legitimate aim and impose the minimum necessary constraint. Those who cannot fully protect themselves command heightened protective duties from those who can.
Core domains: Admin & Judicial, Criminal Justice
Decisions affecting sapient entities must be grounded in truthful information and disclosed reasoning. Deliberate deception, manipulation, and suppression of material knowledge are prohibited.
Core domains: Tech & AI, Admin & Judicial
No sapient entity shall be systematically excluded from rights, resources, or participation on the basis of immutable or protected characteristics. Structural barriers that perpetuate exclusion are as prohibited as direct discrimination.
Core domains: Labour & Economy, Family & Community
Present generations must preserve the ecological, social, and institutional conditions that allow future generations to flourish. The interests of the not-yet-born have standing in all normative calculation; irreversible harm to posterity is prohibited.
Core domains: Environment, Property & Resources
Sapient beings exist within webs of relationship that generate reciprocal obligations. Care for dependents, restorative duties to those we have harmed, and mutual aid within community are constitutive of civilized life, not optional supererogation.
Core domains: Family & Community, Criminal Justice
Every sapient being has the right to control information about themselves — what is collected, by whom, for what purpose, and for how long. This right is constitutive of autonomy and dignity in the information age.
Core domains: Privacy & Data, Tech & AI
Which meta-principles anchor each Layer 2 domain
| Domain | Primary Principles | Universality |
|---|---|---|
| Life & Body (LB) | P01, P05, P06 | Near-universal |
| Liberty & Expression (LE) | P01, P04, P07 | Near-universal |
| Privacy & Data (PD) | P11, P04, P07 | Widespread |
| Property & Resources (PR) | P02, P09, P04 | Widespread |
| Contracts & Trade (CT) | P05, P02, P07 | Near-universal |
| Family & Community (FC) | P01, P10, P06 | Near-universal |
| Labour & Economy (LE2) | P01, P02, P04 | Near-universal |
| Environment & Animals (EA) | P09, P01, P03 | Widespread |
| Criminal Justice (CJ) | P01, P02, P03 | Near-universal |
| Admin & Judicial (AJ) | P02, P03, P07 | Near-universal |
| War & Peace (WP) | P01, P02, P06 | Near-universal |
| Tech & AI (TA) | P03, P07, P08 | Emerging |
| Religion & Ethics (RE) | P01, P04, P08 | Widespread |
| Culture & Customs (CC) | P01, P04, P08 | Widespread |
| Pseudo-Meta (PM) | All 11 | Near-universal |
