Dublin, Ireland

Law & Government

Table of contents

Law & Government at DCU

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: law
University website: www.dcu.ie/

Definitions and quotes

Government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, often a state.
Law
Law is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. Law is a system that regulates and ensures that individuals or a community adhere to the will of the state. State-enforced laws can be made by a collective legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes, by the executive through decrees and regulations, or established by judges through precedent, normally in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals can create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that may elect to accept alternative arbitration to the normal court process. The formation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people.
Government
All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.
James A. Garfield, letter to B. A. Hinsdale (21 April 1880), as published in The Nation's Hero – In Memoriam: The life of James Abram Garfield (1881) by Jonas Mills Bundy
Government
No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.
James Madison, Federalist No. 62
Law
Before I be convict by course of law,
To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act I, scene 4, line 192.
When you think about the Earth’s oceans you probably imagine stretches of deep, dark water, exotic marine life and pristine waves. You probably don’t think of vast islands of plastic waste such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an expanse of rubbish which some say is bigger than the continental United States. It was feared that collections of plastic debris like this were growing in line with our increasing rates of plastic production over the past decades. However, scientists have recently discovered that these floating eyesores are mysteriously receding – and that’s actually not a good thing…
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