Law
hideLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator in relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets. Property law defines rights and obligations related to the transfer and title of personal and real property. Trust law applies to assets held for investment and financial security, while tort law allows claims for compensation if a person's rights or property are harmed. If the harm is criminalised in penal code, criminal law offers means by which the state can prosecute the perpetrator. Constitutional law provides a framework for the creation of law, the protection of human rights and the election of political representatives. Administrative law is used to review the decisions of government agencies, while international law governs affairs between sovereign nation states in activities ranging from trade to environmental regulation or military action. Writing in 350 BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle declared, "The rule of law is better than the rule of any individual."
Legal systems elaborate rights and responsibilities in a variety of ways. A general distinction can be made between civil law jurisdictions, which codify their laws, and common law systems, where judge made law is not consolidated. In some countries, religion still informs the law. Law provides a rich source of scholarly inquiry, such as legal history and philosophy, or social scientific perspectives such as economic analysis of law or the sociology of law. The study of law raises important and complex issues concerning equality, fairness, liberty and justice. "In its majestic equality", said the author Anatole France in 1894, "the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." In a typical democracy, the central institutions for interpreting and creating law are the three main branches of government, namely an impartial judiciary, a democratic legislature, and an accountable executive. To implement and enforce the law and provide services to the public, a government's bureaucracy, the military and police are vital. While all these organs of the state are creatures created and bound by law, an independent legal profession and a vibrant civil society inform and support their progress.
For more information about Law, read the full article at
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News tagged with law
New Digital 'Electronics' Concept May Continue Moore's Law
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Computers of the future could be operating not on electrons, but on tiny waves traveling through an electron "fluid," if a new proposal is successful. The new circuit design, recently introduced ...
Second Law of Thermodynamics May Explain Economic Evolution
Nov 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Terms such as the "invisible hand," laissez-faire policy, and free-market principles suggest that economic growth and decline in capitalist societies seem to be somehow self-regulated. Now, ...
Physicist Proposes Solution to Arrow-of-Time Paradox
Aug 27, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Entropy can decrease, according to a new proposal - but the process would destroy any evidence of its existence, and erase any memory an observer might have of it. It sounds like the plot ...
New Law of Physics Could Explain Quantum Mysteries
Aug 17, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Since the early days of quantum mechanics, scientists have been trying to understand the many strange implications of the theory: superpositions, wave-particle duality, and the observer’s ...
Could Maxwell's Demon Exist in Nanoscale Systems?
Jun 24, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Maxwell’s demon may be making a comeback. Physicists know that the demon, an imaginary creature that decreases the entropy of a system, cannot exist in macroscopic systems due to the energy ...
Internet Growth Follows Moore's Law Too
Jan 14, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Originally, Moore’s Law described the number of transistors that can fit on an integrated circuit, which doubles approximately every 18 months. Now, a team of researchers from China has discovered ...
Linux Evolution Reveals Origins of Curious Mathematical Phenomenon
Dec 01, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Zipf’s law is a testament to the order in our world, showing that the same patterns emerge in a wide variety of situations. The linguist George Kingsley Zipf first proposed the law in 1949, ...
Eureqa, the robot scientist (w/ Video)
Technology / Computer Sciences
Dec 07, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A new program, Eureqa, takes raw data and formulates scientific laws to suit, and it is available by free download to all scientists.
Intel settles AMD claims but isn't off the hook
Nov 12, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Intel Corp. is paying Silicon Valley rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. $1.25 billion to squash a legal battle over Intel's sales tactics, a rift that led to antitrust charges against Intel in several ...
Congress weighs landmark change in Web ad privacy
Sep 07, 2009 |
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(AP) -- The Web sites we visit, the online links we click, the search queries we conduct, the products we put in virtual shopping carts, the personal details we reveal on social networking pages - all of this can give companies ...
Breaking the Planck's law, at the nanoscale
Jul 29, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A well-established physical law describes the transfer of heat between two objects, but some physicists have long predicted that the law should break down when the objects are very close together. ...
UQ researchers break the law -- of physics
Jul 06, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Two UQ Science researchers have proved two famous physical laws that have been widely used for the past 25 years do not always work.
Entropyman.org Explains Why Pots 'Unbreak' on the Nanoscale (Video)
Feb 16, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A man lifts his hand in the air, and broken pieces of ceramic lying on the sidewalk spring up into his hand, coming together to form a flower pot. He lifts his hands again, and more broken ...
Stable Opera 10.10 browser with Unite now available
Nov 24, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The web browser Opera 10.10 has been released as a stable version, and it has a number of new features to enhance the browsing experience, including "Unite", which is a group of applications ...
Google says Murdoch stories can be taken off
Nov 10, 2009 |
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Google said on Tuesday, in response to threats by Rupert Murdoch to ban the search engine from listing content from his news empire, that any company could ask to have stories taken off. ...
