This is thefirst definition of the Rule oflaw, of !'Etat de. droit. Second, in the Rule of law there is a difference of kind, effect, and origin between, on the one hand, laws, which are universally valid general measures and in themselves acts ofsovereignty, and, on the other hand, particular decisions of the public. authorities. In other words, the Rule oflaw is a state in which legal dispositions, the expression of sovereignty, on the one hand, _and administrative measures, on the other, are distinguished in their principle, effects, apd nlidity.

Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, loc. 910