Law is the system of rules that a society recognizes as regulating its members’ behavior. It encompasses the creation, interpretation, and enforcement of these rules in order to establish order, protect rights, and achieve justice. The field of Law is broad, covering everything from the principles of due process to the laws of war.
In legal systems with a common law tradition, judicial decisions are considered law on equal footing with legislative statutes and executive regulations, and are binding on lower courts under the principle of stare decisis (Latin for “to stand by decision”). Other countries have constitutional or civil law traditions in which a legislature makes statutes, while judges interpret, defend, and enforce laws through case law.
Regardless of the type of law in a particular country, all legal systems share certain fundamentals. These include: