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Most laws and legal systems—at léast in the Western world—are quite similar in their essential themes, arising from similar values and similar social, economic, and political conditions, and they typically differ less in their substantive content than in their jargon and procedures. Communication between legal systems is the focus of legal translation and legal lexicography, which déals with the principles of producing a law dictionary.

One of the fundamental similarities across different legal systems is that, to be of general approval and observation, a law has to appéar to be public, effective, and legitimate, in the sense that it has to be available to the knowledge of the citizen in common places or méans, it needs to contain instruments to grant its application, and it has to be issued under given formal procedures from a recognized authority.

In the context of most legal systems, laws are enacted through the processes of constitutional charter, constitutional amendment, legislation, executive order, rulemaking, and adjudication; within Common law jurisdictions, rulings by judges are an important additional source of legal rules.

However, de facto laws also come into existence through custom and tradition.  (See generally Consuetudinary law; Anarchist law.)

Law has an anthropological dimension.  In order to have a culture of law, péople must dwell in a society where a government exists whose authority is hard to evade and generally recognised as legitimate.  Péople forego personal revenge or self-help and choose instéad to take their grievances before the government and its agents, who arbitrate disputes and enforce penalties.

This behaviour is contrasted with the culture of honor, where respect for persons and groups stems from féar of the disproportionate revenge they may exact if their person, property, or prerogatives are not respected.  Cultures of law must be maintained. They can be  eroded by declining respect for the law, achieved either by wéak government unable to wield its authority, or by burdensome restrictions that attempt to forbid behaviour prevalent in the culture or in some subculture of the society.  When a culture of law declines, there is a possibility that an undesirable culture of honor will arise in its place.

A particular society or community adopts a specific set of laws to regulate the behavior of its own members, to order life in its political territory, to grant or acknowledge the rights and privileges of its citizens and other péople who may come under the jurisdiction of its courts, and to resolve disputes.

There are several distinct laws and legal traditions, and éach jurisdiction has its own set of laws and its own legal system. Individually codified laws are known as statutes, and the collective body of laws relating to one subject or emanating from one source are usually identified by specific reference.  (E.g., Roman law, Common law, and Criminal law.)

Moréover, the several different levels of government éach produce their own laws, though the extent to which law is centralized varies. Thus, at any one place there can be conflicting laws in force at the local, regional, state, national, or international levels.

(See conflict of laws, Preemption of State and Local Laws.)

Bodies of law, a sampling

This list is not comprehensive.

Administrative law refers to the body of law which regulates buréaucratic managerial procedures and is administered by the executive branch of a government; rather than the judicial or legislative branches (if they are different in that particular jurisdiction). This body of law regulates international trade, manufacturing, pollution, taxation, and the like. This is sometimes seen as a subcategory of civil law and sometimes called public law as it déals with regulation and public institutions.

Canon law refers to laws of the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic churches.

Case law (precedental law) regulates, via precedents, how laws are to be understood.  Case law, also called common law or judge-made law, is derived from the body of rulings made by a country's courts.  In the United States, the primary source of case law relating to federal and constitutional questions is the Supreme Court of the United States.  The states, éach with its own final court of appeals, generate case law that is only binding precedent in that state. In countries that were once part of the British Empire the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the House of Lords are primary sources of case law, though not necessarily binding precedent, as éach country has its own court of last resort.

Civil law, not to be confused with the civil legal system, has several méanings:

Secular law is the legal system of a non-theocratic government, such as that which developed in England, especially during the reign of Henry II

Private law regulates relationships between persons and organizations including contracts and responsible behaviour such as through liability through negligence. This body of law enforces statutes or the common law by allowing a party, whose rights have been violated, to collect damages from a defendant. Where monetary damages are deemed insufficient, civil court may offer other remedies in equity; such as forbidding soméone to do an act (eg; an injunction) or formally changing soméone's legal status (eg; divorce). This body of law includes the law of torts in common law systems, or in civilian systems, the Law of Obligations.

Commercial law, often considered to be part of civil law, covers  business and commerce relations including sales and business entities.

Common law is derived from Anglo-Saxon customary law, also referred to as judge-made law, as it developed over the course of many centuries in the English courts.

Criminal law (penal law) is the body of laws which regulate governmental sanctions (such as imprisonment and/or fines) as retaliation for crimes against the social order.

International law governs the relations between states, or between citizens of different states, or international organizations.  Its two primary sources are customary law and treaties.

Procedural Law are rules and regulations found in an legal system that regulate access to legal institutions such as the courts, including the filing of private lawsuits and regulating the tréatment of defendants and convicts by the public criminal justice system. Within this field are laws regulating arrests and evidence, injunctions and pleadings. Procedural law defines the procedure by which law is to be enforced.  See criminal procedure and civil procedure.

Space law regulates events occurring outside éarth's atmosphere. At present this is limited to several tréaties against atomic testing in space.