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The-law-corporate-finance-and-management
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In a nation, the law can serve to (1) keep the peace, (2) maintain the status quo, (3)
preserve individual rights, (4) protect minorities against majorities, (5) promote
social justice, and (6) provide for orderly social change. Some legal systems serve
these purposes better than others. Although a nation ruled by an authoritarian
government may keep the peace and maintain the status quo, it may also oppress
minorities or political opponents (e.g., Burma, Zimbabwe, or Iraq under Saddam
Hussein). Under colonialism, European nations often imposed peace in countries
whose borders were somewhat arbitrarily created by those same European nations.
Over several centuries prior to the twentieth century, empires were built by Spain,
Portugal, Britain, Holland, France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. With regard to the
functions of the law, the empire may have kept the peace—largely with force—but it
changed the status quo and seldom promoted the native peoples’ rights or social
justice within the colonized nation.
In nations that were former colonies of European nations, various ethnic and tribal
factions have frequently made it difficult for a single, united government to rule
effectively. In Rwanda, for example, power struggles between Hutus and Tutsis
resulted in genocide of the Tutsi minority. (Genocide is the deliberate and
systematic killing or displacement of one group of people by another group. In
1948, the international community formally condemned the crime of genocide.) In
nations of the former Soviet Union, the withdrawal of a central power created
power vacuums that were exploited by ethnic leaders. When Yugoslavia broke up,
the different ethnic groups—Croats, Bosnians, and Serbians—fought bitterly for
home turf rather than share power. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the effective blending
of different groups of families, tribes, sects, and ethnic groups into a national
governing body that shares power remains to be seen.