Law is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental

institutions to regulate behavior. It has been defined both as "the Science of Justice" and "the
Art of Justice". Law is a system that regulates and ensures that individuals or a community
adhere to the will of the state.

Ancient world[edit]
Main articles: Ma'at, Babylonian law, Ancient Greek law, and Leviticus
See also: Urukagina, Hittite laws, and Ostracism
Ancient Egyptian law, dating as far back as 3000 BC, had a civil code that was probably broken into
twelve books. It was based on the concept of Ma'at, characterised by tradition, rhetorical speech,
social equality and impartiality.[1] By the 22nd century BC, Ur-Nammu, an ancient Sumerian ruler,
formulated the first extant law code, consisting of casuistic statements ("if... then..."). Around 1760
BC, King Hammurabi further developed Babylonian law, by codifying and inscribing it in stone.
Hammurabi placed several copies of his law code throughout the kingdom of Babylon as stelae, for
the entire public to see; this became known as the Codex Hammurabi. The most intact copy of these
stelae was discovered in the 19th century by British Assyriologists, and has since been
fully transliterated and translated into various languages, including English, German and French.
Ancient Greek has no word for "law" as an abstract concept,[2] retaining instead the distinction
between divine law (thémis), human decree (nomos) and custom (díkē).[3] Yet Ancient Greek
law contained major constitutional innovations in the development of democracy.[4]

Southern Asia[edit]
Main articles: Manu Smriti, Yajnavalkya Smriti, Arthashastra, Dharmasastra, and Fatawa-e-Alamgiri
See also: Classical Hindu law, Classical Hindu law in practice, and Hindu law

The Constitution of India is the longest written constitution for a country, containing 444 articles, 12 schedules,
numerous amendments and 117,369 words

Ancient India and China represent distinct traditions of law, and had historically independent schools
of legal theory and practice. The Arthashastra, dating from the 400 BC, and the Manusmriti from 100
BCE[5] were influential treatises in India, texts that were considered authoritative legal
guidance.[6] Manu's central philosophy was tolerance and pluralism, and was cited across South East
Asia.[7]During the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent, sharia was established by the Muslim
sultanates and empires, most notably Mughal Empire's Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, compiled by
emperor Aurangzeb and various scholars of Islam.[8][9] After British colonialism, Hindu tradition, along
with Islamic law, was supplanted by the common law when India became part of the British
Empire.[10] Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Hong Kong also adopted the common law.

Eastern Asia[edit]
Main articles: Traditional Chinese law, Tang Code, and Great Qing Legal Code
The eastern Asia legal tradition reflects a unique blend of secular and religious influences.[11] Japan
was the first country to begin modernising its legal system along western lines, by importing bits of
the French, but mostly the German Civil Code.[12] This partly reflected Germany's status as a rising
power in the late nineteenth century. Similarly, traditional Chinese lawgave way to westernisation
towards the final years of the Qing dynasty in the form of six private law codes based mainly on the
Japanese model of German law.[13] Today Taiwanese law retains the closest affinity to the
codifications from that period, because of the split between Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists, who fled
there, and Mao Zedong's communists who won control of the mainland in 1949. The current legal
infrastructure in the People's Republic of China was heavily influenced by soviet Socialist law, which
essentially inflates administrative law at the expense of private law rights.[14] Today, however,
because of rapid industrialisation China has been reforming, at least in terms of economic (if not
social and political) rights. A new contract code in 1999 represented a turn away from administrative
domination.[15] Furthermore, after negotiations lasting fifteen years, in 2001 China joined the World
Trade Organization.[16]

 Yassa of the Mongol Empire

Canon law[edit]

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Main article: Legal history of the Catholic Church
Further information: Canon law (Catholic Church)
The legal history of the Catholic Church is the history of Catholic canon law, the oldest continuously
functioning legal system in the West.[17] Canon law originates much later than Roman law but
predates the evolution of modern European civil law traditions. The cultural exchange between the
secular (Roman/Barbarian) and ecclesiastical (canon) law produced the jus commune and greatly
influenced both civil and common law.
The history of Latin canon law can be divided into four periods: the jus antiquum, the jus novum,
the jus novissimum and the Code of Canon Law.[18] In relation to the Code, history can be divided
into the jus vetus (all law before the Code) and the jus novum (the law of the Code, or jus
codicis).[18] Eastern canon law developed separately.
In the twentieth century, canon law was comprehensively codified. On 27 May 1917, Pope Benedict
XV codified the 1917 Code of Canon Law. John XIII, together with his intention to call the Second
Vatican Council, announced his intention to reform canon law, which culminated in the 1983 Code of
Canon Law, promulgated by John Paul II on 25 January 1983. John Paul II also brought to a close
the long process of codifying the legal elements common to all 23 sui juris Eastern Catholic
Churches on 18 October 1990 by promulgating the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.

Islamic law[edit]
Main article: Sharia
See also: Fiqh, Islamic ethics, and Early reforms under Islam
One of the major legal systems developed during the Middle Ages was Islamic
law and jurisprudence. A number of important legal institutions were developed by Islamic
jurists during the classical period of Islamic law and jurisprudence. One such institution was
the Hawala, an early informal value transfer system, which is mentioned in texts of Islamic
jurisprudence as early as the 8th century. Hawala itself later influenced the development of
the Aval in French civil law and the Avallo in Italian law.[19]

European laws[edit]
Roman Empire[edit]
Main articles: Roman law and Byzantine law
Roman law was heavily influenced by Greek teachings.[20] It forms the bridge to the modern legal
world, over the centuries between the rise and decline of the Roman Empire.[21] Roman law, in the
days of the Roman republic and Empire, was heavily procedural and there was no professional legal
class.[22] Instead a lay person, iudex, was chosen to adjudicate. Precedents were not reported, so
any case law that developed was disguised and almost unrecognised.[23] Each case was to be
decided afresh from the laws of the state, which mirrors the (theoretical) unimportance of judges'
decisions for future cases in civil law systems today. During the 6th century AD in the Eastern
Roman Empire, the Emperor Justinian codified and consolidated the laws that had existed in Rome
so that what remained was one twentieth of the mass of legal texts from before.[24] This became
known as the Corpus Juris Civilis. As one legal historian wrote, "Justinian consciously looked back to
the golden age of Roman law and aimed to restore it to the peak it had reached three centuries
before."[25]

Middle Ages[edit]

King John of England signs the Magna Carta

Main articles: Early Germanic law, Anglo-Saxon law, Lex mercatoria, and Early Irish law
See also: Germanic tribal laws, Visigothic Code, Dōm, Blutgericht, Magna Carta,
and Schwabenspiegel
During the Byzantine Empire the Justinian Code was expanded and remained in force until the
Empire fell, though it was never officially introduced to the West. Instead, following the fall of the
Western Empire and in former Roman countries, the ruling classes relied on the Theodosian Code to
govern natives and Germanic customary law for the Germanic incomers - a system known as folk-
right - until the two laws blended together. Since the Roman court system had broken down, legal
disputes were adjudicated according to Germanic custom by assemblies of learned lawspeakers in
rigid ceremonies and in oral proceedings that relied heavily on testimony.
After much of the West was consolidated under Charlemagne, law became centralized so as to
strengthen the royal court system, and consequently case law, and abolished folk-right. However,
once Charlemagne's kingdom definitively splintered, Europe became feudalistic, and law was
generally not governed above the county, municipal or lordship level, thereby creating a highly
decentralized legal culture that favored the development of customary law founded on localized case
law. However, in the 11th century, crusaders, having pillaged the Byzantine Empire, returned with
Byzantine legal texts including the Justinian Code, and scholars at the University of Bologna were
the first to use them to interpret their own customary laws.[26]Medieval European legal scholars began
researching the Roman law and using its concepts[27] and prepared the way for the partial
resurrection of Roman law as the modern civil law in a large part of the world.[28] There was,
however, a great deal of resistance so that civil law rivaled customary law for much of the late Middle
Ages.
After the Norman conquest of England, which introduced Norman legal concepts into medieval
England, the English King's powerful judges developed a body of precedent that became
the common law.[29] In particular, Henry II instituted legal reforms and developed a system of royal
courts administered by a small number of judges who lived in Westminster and traveled throughout
the kingdom.[30] Henry II also instituted the Assize of Clarendon in 1166, which allowed for jury trials
and reduced the number of trials by combat. Louis IX of France also undertook major legal reforms
and, inspired by ecclesiastical court procedure, extended Canon-law evidence and inquisitorial-
trial systems to the royal courts. Also, judges no longer moved on circuits becoming fixed to their
jurisdictions, and jurors were nominated by parties to the legal dispute rather than by the sheriff.[30] In
addition, by the 10th century, the Law Merchant, first founded on Scandinavian trade customs, then
solidified by the Hanseatic League, took shape so that merchants could trade using familiar
standards, rather than the many splintered types of local law. A precursor to modern commercial
law, the Law Merchant emphasised the freedom of contract and alienability of property.[31]

Modern European law[edit]

Main articles: Napoleonic code, Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, English law, and Francisco de Vitoria
The two main traditions of modern European law are the codified legal systems of most of
continental Europe, and the English tradition based on case law.
As nationalism grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, lex mercatoria was incorporated into countries'
local law under new civil codes. Of these, the French Napoleonic Code and the
German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuchbecame the most influential. As opposed to English common law,
which consists of massive tomes of case law, codes in small books are easy to export and for judges
to apply. However, today there are signs that civil and common law are converging. European Union
law is codified in treaties, but develops through the precedent set down by the European Court of
Justice.