Legal subjects

Though all legal systems must deal with similar issues, different countries often categorise and name legal subjects in different ways. Quite common is the distinction between "public law" subjects, which relate closely to the state (including constitutional, administrative and criminal law), and "private law" subjects (including contract, tort and property).[6] In civil law systems, contract and tort fall under a general law of obligations and trusts law is dealt with under statutory regimes or international conventions. International, constitutional and administrative law, criminal law, contract, tort, property law and trusts are regarded as the "traditional core subjects",[7] although there are many further disciplines which might be of greater practical importance.


International law

Providing a constitution for public international law, the United Nations was conceived during World War II.

In a global economy, law is globalising too. International law can refer to three things: public international law, private international law or conflict of laws and the law of supranational organisations.

* Public international law concerns relationships among sovereign nations. The sources for public international law to develop are custom, practice and treaties between sovereign nations like the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war. Public international law is also formed by international organisations, such as the United Nations (founded under the UN Charter, and established after the League of Nations failed to prevent the Second World War[8]), the International Labour Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, or the International Monetary Fund. Public international law has a special status as law because there is no international police force, and courts (International Court of Justice is the primary UN judicial organ) lack the capacity to penalise disobedience.[9] Nevertheless, inernational bodies such as the World Trade Organisation or the International Labour Organisation set up institutionalized supervisory mechanisms for the monitoring of the implementation of their international agreements in the domestic law of member countries.[10]

* Conflict of laws (or "private international law" in civil law countries) concerns which jurisdiction a legal dispute between private parties should be heard in and which jurisdiction's law should be applied. Today, businesses are increasingly capable of shifting capital and labour supply chains across borders, as well as trading with overseas businesses. This increases the number of disputes outside a unified legal framework. Increasing numbers of businesses opt for commercial arbitration under the New York Convention 1958.[11]

* European Union law is the first and thus far only example of a supranational legal framework. However, given increasing global economic integration, many regional agreements—especially the Union of South American Nations—are on track to follow the same model. In the EU, sovereign nations have pooled their authority through a system of courts and political institutions. They have the ability to enforce legal norms against and for member states and citizens, in a way that public international law does not.[12] As the European Court of Justice said in the 1960s, European Union law constitutes "a new legal order of international law" for the mutual social and economic benefit of the member states.[13]