What Is Law?
Law is a body of rules that regulates societal behavior and enforces them through a controlling authority, such as a monarch or king, or a parliament or congress. It encompasses a broad range of disciplines and fields that influence human civilization. Contract law, for example, regulates the agreements that people make to exchange goods or services, including everything from buying a bus ticket to trading options on a derivatives market; property law defines people’s rights and duties toward tangible property (i.e., real estate) and their personal belongings; criminal law governs crime, punishment and other matters related to the enforcement of justice; and family, labour, tax and constitutional laws define how a society should be run.
The law has an enormous impact on the world’s people and their daily lives in a wide variety of ways, from how they are allowed to marry to how they get paid for their work. It is a fundamental aspect of modern life. Its many fields and diverse applications are often interconnected; for example, a judge’s views on whether the legal system should be more or less biased will likely affect his rulings.
In a political context, the law is used to keep order and provide a sense of security in a given area. It is also a tool to deal with conflicts of interest and social injustices. Different legal systems serve different purposes, and the nature of laws varies widely from nation to nation. For example, a nation led by an authoritarian government may keep the peace and maintain the status quo but may oppress minorities or even its own citizens.
Those who study law often have very different opinions about what constitutes the “law” and how it should be applied in the real world. A popular theory is that the law is a social institution with three important features: it serves society’s needs, it reflects society’s values and beliefs and, because of its coercive nature, it is an expression of power.
Although there are several definitions of law, the word is most commonly used to describe a set of rules that a particular geographic area’s government enacts and enforces. This usage is a result of the fact that most people’s lives and livelihoods are governed by a set of laws, from traffic regulations to employment policies. The law is also used to describe the profession of lawyer, which consists of individuals who practice in the field of law and are trained as jurists or judges. Other related terms include statutory law, common law and administrative law. Statutory law is a set of laws passed by an official legislature, while common law is a set of practices that have been interpreted by courts of justice and are considered standard for the jurisdiction under which a person or group operates. Administrative law is a branch of law that deals with the operations of government agencies. Finally, constitutional law is a set of guidelines that determines the structure and form of the state, its boundaries, and its powers.