Law is the system of rules that a society develops to deal with crime, business agreements and social relationships. It is a branch of public and private governance that also regulates the economy, history, culture and society.
The defining feature of law is the way in which it establishes power relations between people and between different groups within a community. The creation of laws is a political process that varies from country to country, and the way in which people respond to government power can shape politics, economics, history and culture.
For example, revolutions can lead to new political-legal orders; the framers of the United States Constitution created a system of checks and balances to prevent excessive power in one part of government by separating the legislative, executive and judicial branches. Philosophers have argued about the extent to which law incorporates morality, with utilitarians such as John Austin and Bentham saying that law is simply commands, often with a threat of punishment, from a powerful person, whereas natural lawyers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau argue that laws reflect essentially moral and unchanging laws of nature.
Law covers a range of topics from contract law, which governs agreements that exchange goods or services, to intellectual property law, which protects the rights people have over works such as music and art. Administrative law governs the actions that governments and other agencies take, while criminal law deals with the punishment of crimes. Other areas include family law, which relates to marriage and divorce proceedings and children’s rights; immigration law and nationality law; and commercial and transactional law (including biolaw). Ideas for new laws are put into a formal document called a bill, which is numbered in the order in which it is introduced in each Congress.