Further Disciplines

Law spreads far beyond the core subjects into virtually every area of life. Three categories are presented for convenience, though the subjects intertwine and overlap.

Law and society

A trade union protest by UNISON while on strike

Labour law is the study of a tripartite industrial relationship between worker, employer and trade union. This involves collective bargaining regulation, and the right to strike. Individual employment law refers to workplace rights, such as job security, health and safety or a minimum wage.
Human rights, civil rights and human rights law are important fields to guarantee everyone basic freedoms and entitlements. These are laid down in codes such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights (which founded the European Court of Human Rights) and the U.S. Bill of Rights. The Treaty of Lisbon makes the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union legally binding in allmember states except Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – Poland and the United Kingdom.^[52]
Civil procedure and criminal procedure concern the rules that courts must follow as a trial and appeals proceed. Both concern a citizen’s right to a fair trial or hearing.
Evidence law involves which materials are admissible in courts for a case to be built.
Immigration law and nationality law concern the rights of foreigners to live and work in a nation-state that is not their own and to acquire or lose citizenship. Both also involve the right of asylum and the problem of stateless individuals.
Social security law refers to the rights people have to social insurance, such as jobseekers’ allowances or housing benefits.
Family law covers marriage and divorce proceedings, the rights of children and rights to property and money in the event of separation.

Law and commerce

Company law sprang from the law of trusts, on the principle of separating ownership of property and control.^[53] The law of the modern company began with the Joint Stock Companies Act 1856, passed in the United Kingdom, which provided investors with a simple registration procedure to gain limited liability under the separate legal personality of the corporation.
Commercial law covers complex contract and property law. The law of agency, insurance law, bills of exchange, insolvency and bankruptcy law and sales law are all important, and trace back to the mediæval Lex Mercatoria. The UK Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the US Uniform Commercial Code are examples of codified common law commercial principles.
Admiralty law and the Law of the Sea lay a basic framework for free trade and commerce across the world’s oceans and seas, where outside of a country’s zone of control. Shipping companies operate through ordinary principles of commercial law, generalised for a global market. Admiralty law also encompasses specialised issues such as salvage, maritime liens, and injuries to passengers.
Intellectual property law aims at safeguarding creators and other producers of intellectual goods and services. These are legal rights (copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights) which result from intellectual activity in the industrial, literary and artistic fields.^[54]
Restitution deals with the recovery of someone else’s gain, rather than compensation for one’s own loss.
Unjust enrichment When someone has been unjustly enriched (or there is an “absence of basis” for a transaction) at another’s expense, this event generates the right to restitution to reverse that gain.
Law and regulation

The New York Stock Exchange trading floor after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, before tougher banking regulation was introduced
- Tax law involves regulations that concern value added tax, corporate tax, income tax.
- Banking law and financial regulation set minimum standards on the amounts of capital banks must hold, and rules about best practice for investment. This is to insure against the risk of economic crises, such as the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
- Regulation deals with the provision of public services and utilities. Water law is one example. Especially since privatisation became popular and took management of services away from public law, private companies doing the jobs previously controlled by government have been bound by varying degrees of social responsibility. Energy, gas, telecomms and water are regulated industries in most OECD countries.
- Competition law, known in the U.S. as antitrust law, is an evolving field that traces as far back as Roman decrees against price fixing and the English restraint of trade doctrine. Modern competition law derives from the U.S. anti-cartel and anti-monopoly statutes (the Sherman Act and Clayton Act) of the turn of the 20th century. It is used to control businesses who attempt to use their economic influence to distort market prices at the expense of consumer welfare.
- Consumer law could include anything from regulations on unfair contractual terms and clauses to directives on airline baggage insurance.
- Environmental law is increasingly important, especially in light of the Kyoto Protocol and the potential danger of climate change. Environmental protection also serves to penalise polluters within domestic legal systems.