Law is the body of rules and regulations that are created by governing bodies and enforced to set standards, maintain order, resolve disputes, and protect people’s liberties and rights. It shapes politics, economics, history and society in many ways. There are four principal goals of law: establishing norms; maintaining order; settling disputes; and protecting rights. In addition, laws regulate business and social interactions in various ways. Examples include contract law, which regulates agreements to exchange goods or services; property law, defining people’s rights to tangible and intangible property; and tort law, governing cases of injury caused by wrongful conduct by others.
Law also has procedural aspects, requiring that legal institutions and procedures be accessible to people so that they can uphold their rights, settle disputes and defend themselves against the abuse of public power. For example, a judge must be independent of the other branches of government, as in a democracy; and there must be a free press and transparent public business in a republic. These are aspects of the Rule of Law, which is a general standard that H.L.A. Hart (1964) formulated as principles that a law must be general, prospective, clear, stable and practicable to be effective.
The Rule of Law is a standard of good governance and has been the subject of enduring argument, starting with Aristotle (335 BC); continuing through medieval theorists such as Sir John Fortescue (1471); and, in the European Enlightenment, in the writings of Montesquieu (1748) and other philosophers; and, in modern times, in constitutional theory, as articulated by scholars such as H.L.A. Hart (1965).