Law is a system of rules created and enforced by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. Depending on the legal system, laws may be made by a group legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or established by judges through precedent, usually in common law jurisdictions.
The term law is often used interchangeably with the concept of justice, which refers to a process of evaluating and judging a person’s actions in light of their meaning within a given society. Law is also a field of research focusing on the origin and development of laws, and is a part of the discipline of philosophy.
A legal system committed to rights aims to promote the interests, agency, dignity, autonomy, control and liberty of individuals as their primary units of concern, rather than other groups or entities (Raz 1979; Raz 1994). This emphasis on individuality is a hallmark of views such as those of Nozick and Dworkin, as well as that of many other political philosophers, including John Locke, Montesquieu, and Max Weber.