What Is Law?
Law is a system of rules and policies that a community or country recognizes as binding upon its members. It is enforced by a controlling authority. Law may be written or unwritten and may be constitutional or non-constitutional. It encompasses a wide range of subject areas, from criminal and labour law to property and international law. Oxford Reference offers a broad selection of concise definitions and in-depth, specialist encyclopedic entries covering law as it affects the world around us.
Law can be created or enforced at the state, federal or international level. It serves many purposes, including establishing standards, maintaining order and resolving disputes. Law may be made by a legislative body, resulting in statutes; by executive branch agencies, resulting in regulations; or through judicial interpretation, often referred to as case law. The latter is based on the doctrine of stare decisis, in which previous court decisions are used to evaluate new cases.
Different schools of legal thought exist, examining how laws are created and enforced, and what aims they serve. These include positivist and legal realist approaches, examining how social context and the behavior of principal actors determine the meaning and application of law. Employment law, for example, deals with the tripartite industrial relationship between employer, employee and trade union, while tort law covers compensation for harm or injury incurred by an individual – from car accidents to libellous remarks. Property law refers to ownership and possession, and civil procedure and evidence law deal with the rules that must be followed as trials and appeals are conducted.