Law is the system of rules and norms established by a community to regulate conduct, establish standards, resolve disputes, and protect individual liberties and rights. It includes the rules of a state or nation and those of an organization or enterprise, as well as the customs and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decisions. It also includes the principles and guidelines of an ethical and moral code: the laws of nature, the laws of science, and the laws of humankind. Law may be written, oral, or implied. It may be general or specific, and it may exist in a variety of forms, including statutes, ordinances, treaties, contracts, and judicial decisions.
Law can be divided into several branches: criminal law, tort law, constitutional law, administrative law, and international law. The discipline of law generally includes the study and practice of the history, development, and structure of these branches and their relationships to each other and to other aspects of society.
A central feature of law is that it reflects and protects people’s expectations for social order even when those expectations are violated by violations of the rules of conduct. This function can only be fulfilled if law is based on principles of justice, as reflected in its sanctions and in its criteria for making legal decisions.
The nature of those principles varies between different legal cultures. Some base their law on (unwritten) traditions, replenished with precedents of judicial dispensation of justice (common law); others, such as the modern American law, are grounded on a set of enacted rules created by legislatures and interpreted and enforced by judges.
The purpose of law varies as well, although some of its most basic functions are shared by all systems. In a democracy, the law helps keep peace and maintain the status quo; in an authoritarian state, it provides legitimacy for a ruling party and serves as the main instrument of suppression of minorities or opponents. In a civilizing country, it helps promote justice and ensure the rights of individuals and groups. In an imperial state, it may serve to control and stabilize a colony by maintaining law and order, ensuring the proper distribution of resources and burdens, and controlling social change. Law is thus a complex subject that has attracted many scholars and writers throughout the centuries.