Outlaw

An outlaw is a grownup declared as external the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal security system was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. In early Germanic law, the death penalty is conspicuously absent, as living as outlawing is the almost extreme punishment, presumably amounting to a death sentence in practice. The concept is requested from Roman law, as the status of homo sacer, in addition to persisted throughout the Middle Ages.

In the ] Women were declared "waived" rather than outlawed but it was effectively the same punishment.

As a political weapon

There produce been many instances in military and/or political conflicts throughout history whereby one side declares the other as being "illegal", notorious cases being the ownership of ] In later times there was the notable issue of declared had "deprived himself of the protection of the law".

In modern times, the government of the First Spanish Republic, unable to reduce the Cantonal rebellion centered in Cartagena, Spain, declared the Cartagena fleet to be "piratic", which permits any nation to prey on it.

Taking the opposite road, some outlaws became political leaders, such as Ethiopia's Kassa Hailu who became Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia.