Law, as a system of rules enforceable by an authority, is a fundamental aspect of human civilization. It defines what one may do or not do in a social context, and regulates the relationship between people as well as between the government and its citizens.
The precise nature of Law varies widely across nations, as it depends on the extent to which a government has political power (the ability to make and enforce laws). Political instability and authoritarian rule are major factors in the development of legal systems, and each year there are revolts against existing laws or the political-legal structure. A recurring theme in these protests is the demand for democracy and greater rights for ordinary citizens.
Most law is created by legislative statutes and administrative regulations, but there are also judicial decisions that have binding effect. These decisions are known as precedent, and bind lower courts when they have to consider similar cases. Those decisions form an important part of what is often referred to as common law, which exists in about 60% of the world’s nations.
The other 40% of the world’s nations use civil law. This is based on categories and rules originating in the Roman Empire, and sometimes also canon law, and is often supplemented by local custom and culture. This tradition places greater emphasis on the individual and promotes cooperation between individuals rather than competition between them.
A key feature of law is that it has a normative rather than descriptive character, meaning that it says what a person ought to do or not do. This makes it unique from other fields of knowledge such as empirical science (as in the Law of gravity) or even social science and physics (as in the Law of supply and demand).
The principal purposes of law are to keep the peace, maintain the status quo, preserve individual rights, and ensure orderly social change. Some governments are better at serving these purposes than others. A nation ruled by an authoritarian regime might be able to keep the peace and maintain the status quo, but may oppress minorities or be less friendly to foreigners. A democratic regime, on the other hand, might be more open to criticism and have checks in place against abuse of its power.
Law can be applied to almost any area of life. Core subjects include criminal law, labour law and property law. Criminal law covers the punishment of offences, such as murder and robbery, while labour law encompasses the tripartite industrial relationship between employer, employee and trade union, and property law involves ownership of assets.
Other fields of law are more specialised, such as competition law, which dates from Roman decrees against price fixing and the English restraint of trade doctrine. Consumer law is a newer field that combines old and new approaches to regulation of business practices, while patent law involves the protection of intellectual property and copyright. The emergence of space law addresses the issue of people’s rights in outer space, while tax law includes the rules about how much we must pay for goods and services, and banking law includes regulations about the types of money we can hold and how we must store it.