Law is an important tool for maintaining the status quo, keeping peace within a nation, protecting individual rights, promoting social justice, and ensuring orderly social change. Some legal systems achieve these goals better than others. Authoritarian regimes often use law to suppress political opponents and minorities. European powers like France, Britain, and Holland have used law to establish empires in many countries.
Rule of law
Rule of Law is a concept that is central to liberal political morality. It is a system of rules that limits the scope of political power and makes it less arbitrary, peremptory, or perverse. It also establishes the bond of reciprocity and mutual constraint that mitigates the asymmetry of political power.
Sources of law
A legal system is composed of many sources, including statutes, case law, and constitutional law. While these sources are very different from one another, they are all powerful sources of law. Each source has its own purposes and interacts with the others.
Nature of law
The theory of law has many facets. Philosophers who study the nature of law have argued that it must have an objective purpose. While a goal in itself is an important feature of law, it may also be based on moral considerations. Some legal scholars believe that morality and law are inseparable.
Common law
Common law has several advantages and disadvantages. Unlike civil law, common law creates uniform results by applying the same definition requirements to a wide range of situations. However, a common law system has no electoral process for law-making authorities, and they cannot be removed except for misconduct. This means that the decisions of common law judges are often antiquated and biased. This makes it difficult for members of marginalized communities to receive favorable court rulings. As a result, the majority of people and businesses look to legislatures and regulation first, and oftentimes look to time-honored rules to solve problems.
International law
International law is a system of law that operates outside the legal orders of individual nations. It differs from domestic legal systems in many ways. It is overseen by the United Nations Security Council, which consists of representatives of 190 countries. It issues resolutions, which serve as recommendations, and decides on the UN budget and who can become a member. It also elects judges for the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Customs
Customs law involves the regulation of the movement of goods, people, and ideas across borders. Customs attorneys handle a broad range of legal issues, including tariff classification, duty drawback, establishment of bonded warehouses, and operation of Foreign Trade Zones. Their expertise also extends to enforcement, including regulatory audits, merchandise seizures, and liquidated damages claims.
Legal norms
Legal norms are the rules and principles that are enforced by organizations of sovereign power. These norms govern social relationships and determine the rights of people in a given governing jurisdiction.
Functions of rule of law
The rule of law is the process by which a nation establishes and maintains legal structures to govern its society. Its purpose is to promote human dignity by ensuring that people have the means to understand, comply with and obey the law. It also provides a guarantee against official arbitrariness. These are just a few of the functions of the rule of law, which are vital for a free society.
