Many claim that the USA is unique in this respect, but the British Isles had the First Amendment first and they still have it, alongside the Commonwealth Realms of Canada, Australia and New Zealand and also the Republic of Ireland, where the 1688 English Bill of Rights continues to be on the statute books.

The Petitioning Clause of the First Amendment was no innovation in 1789. It is an amalgam of Articles 5 and 13 of the 1688 English Bill of Rights and Articles 23, 24 and 25 of Scotland’s 1689 Claim of Right. The subjects' immunities of both the English Bill and the Scottish Claim of Right apply to the whole of the UK by virtue of the Acts of Union (Art. 4 Union with Scotland Act 1706; Art. 4 Union with England Act 1707; Art. 6 Union with Ireland Act 1800; Art. 6 Act of Union (Ireland) 1800 and pursuant to Calvin's Case). These combine to provide greater protection than even the US First Amendment in many respects; but Americans need not fear, because any additional rights are supposed to apply in the USA by virtue of the Ninth Amendment, which retained any Colonial subjects' rights that pre-dated the formation of the United States of America.

These constitutional laws were consented to by the respective English and Scottish Convention Parliaments—constitutional conventions assembling when there was no Parliament sitting in either realm—after King James II (VII in Scotland) had departed the Crown. They they were then presented as conditions for the British realms accepting William III as King. Both are structured with a list of grievances against King James, the Heads of Declaration, followed by a list of Subjects’ Rights that King William III was charged with protecting as head of state, much as the US President swears an oath to uphold the Constitution.