Private law

Private law governs legal relationships among individuals and organizations, including obligations, property, civil liability, and family relations. It is generally distinguished from public law, which governs the state and its relations with people.

Contract law: The law governing agreements that create legally enforceable obligations. It supplies rules for promises and exchanges between private parties.
Public law: The body of law governing the structure and powers of government and its relations with people. It contrasts private disputes with rules concerning public authority and state action.
Roman law: The legal system developed in ancient Rome and later transmitted through European legal traditions. Its categories and doctrines supplied enduring foundations for private-law systems.
Damages: A monetary remedy awarded to compensate for legally recognized loss. They commonly remedy breaches of contract and civil wrongs between private parties.
Legal positivism: A jurisprudential theory that treats law's validity as grounded in social sources rather than moral merit. It offers one account of how private-law rules count as valid law.
Property law: The law governing rights in and control over things and resources. It determines how private parties acquire, use, transfer, and protect assets.
Criminal law: The body of law defining offenses against the state and prescribing punishments for them. It distinguishes private claims for remedies from public prosecution and punishment.
Corpus Juris Civilis: A sixth-century compilation of Roman law commissioned by Byzantine emperor Justinian I. Its texts preserved Roman private-law materials that later European jurists studied.
Specific performance: A court order requiring a party to perform a contractual obligation. It enforces a private obligation when monetary compensation is inadequate.
Natural law: The view that law is connected to moral principles discoverable through reason or human nature. It contrasts source-based accounts with claims that private rights have moral foundations.

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