Law is a set of rules that governs the conduct of a community and is enforced by a controlling authority through penalties. Law includes written and unwritten rules, and it covers all facets of social life: contract law regulates the agreements that people enter into to exchange goods and services; property law defines people’s rights and duties toward tangible property such as houses or cars; criminal law imposes punishments for offenses against the state or its agents like stealing or defamation; tort law compensates victims for injuries caused by others; and family law addresses marriage, divorce, and child custody.
The idea of law dates back to ancient civilizations, but modern ideas about it have a broad range of interpretations. For example, some people believe that law is nothing more than power backed by threats. This view of law explains why tyrannical rulers, such as Nazi Germany’s Hitler or Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, could enforce arbitrary laws—even though those laws may have been bad—and people would follow them because they were afraid of consequences.
Other people have more complex understandings of what constitutes law, believing that it incorporates morality and a sense of fairness. Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian theories dominated thinking about the nature of law until the 20th century, when writers such as John Austin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau promoted ideas about natural law that reflect innate principles.
The United States, for example, uses a common law system, in which judges make decisions about cases that have been brought before them. Judges base their decisions on a compilation of previous court decisions, called case law. Other countries, such as Japan, use a civil law system in which judges follow a code that explicitly specifies how to decide a case.
In addition to regulating private behavior, law also deals with public policies and regulations, which are created and enacted by government agencies in areas like education, health, and transportation. These types of laws are enacted through legislative bodies, which are often referred to as Congress or Parliament. Many laws also include provisions for judicial review, which means that courts can overturn or modify the original law.
The legal profession is one of the most diverse and specialized occupations in society. Lawyers can be found in every sector of the economy, from insurance and banking to telecommunications and pharmaceuticals. The law is studied at the undergraduate and graduate levels in universities throughout the world, although the majority of students studying it do so through a bachelor’s degree program that focuses on the basics of civil and criminal law. In addition to university study, many students study law as part of a professional degree or certificate program in the form of a master’s or doctorate degree. Many of these programs offer a specialized focus in one or more particular fields of law, such as corporate law, international law, or environmental law. Regardless of the field, the study of law requires rigorous analytical skills and extensive reading to keep up with the latest developments in legislation and jurisprudence.