Law

For other uses, see Law (disambiguation).

Lady Justice or Justitia is a personification of the moral force that underlies the legal system (particularly in Western art). Her blindfold symbolises equality under the law through impartiality towards its subjects, the weighing scales represent the balancing of people's interests under the law, and her sword denotes the law's force of reason and the power of the sovereign to enforce the law.

Law^[1] is a system of rules usually enforced through a set of institutions.^[2] Law affects everyday life and society in a variety of ways. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading swaptions on a derivatives market. Property law defines rights and obligations related to buying, selling, or renting real property such as homes and buildings. Trust law applies to assets held for investment, such as pension funds. Tort law allows claims for compensation when someone or their property is harmed. But if the harm is criminalised, and the act is intentional, criminal law offers means to prosecute and punish the perpetrator. Constitutional law provides a framework for creating laws, protecting people's human rights, and electing political representatives, while administrative law allows ordinary citizens to challenge the way governments exercise power. International law regulates affairs between sovereign nation-states in everything from trade to the environment to military action. "The rule of law", wrote the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in 350 BC, "is better than the rule of any individual."^[3]

Legal systems around the world elaborate legal rights and responsibilities in different ways. A basic distinction is made between civil law jurisdictions and systems using common law. Some countries base their law on religious scripts. Scholars investigate the nature of law through many perspectives, including legal history and philosophy, or social sciences such as economics and sociology. The study of law raises important questions about equality, fairness and justice, which are not always simple. "In its majestic equality", said the author Anatole France in 1894, "the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."^[4] The most important institutions for law are the judiciary, the legislature, the executive, its bureaucracy, the military and police, the legal profession and civil society.