But the law may not be universal. In Australia such events may be governed by different laws depending upon the status of the landlord or seller. For example, consumer protection legislation usually applies only to businesses and not private individuals. Consumer protection legislation provides clearer and stronger remedies than the often complicated common law and equitable remedies which apply to private individuals. Similarly, a consumer may be able to sue a business in a small claims tribunal where lawyers are excluded and there is no risk of having to pay the trader’s legal costs if the consumer loses, but if the seller is a private individual then the consumer has to use the court system which is much more expensive and difficult to use without a lawyer.
So the law which regulates society is not the same law for the same person in transactions which are identical save for the status of the other party.
There’s not much sense or universal fairness in a legal system which grants or removes legal rights by looking at the status of one of the parties.
But then again, that is consistent with the origin of the Australian legal system as the product which flowed from the English monarch’s resolution of disputes among his lords. This evolved into the common law courts and the parallel equity jurisdiction, with each jurisdiction having its own remedies which were not available in the other. As the English discovered parliamentary democracy the legislature grafted its ever-increasing outpouring of legislation onto the other two jurisdictions. And then common law and equity courts were fused but the separate doctrines and remedies remain today as glorious remnants of an inherently contradictory system which lacks a coherent unifying doctrine because the system evolved rather than was designed.
250 kw, not hp. That’s about 335 hp. Anyway, I’m looking at getting only 240kw / 320 hp, because I value and want to maintain my environmental credibility. 
They are not always regulated in the sense of the result being prescribed or known from the outset. Many aspects of those things are left to the discretion of a judge and or civil jury to determine, albeit supposedly in accordance with established legal principles. But nobody knows what the law is in a given case until the judge’s decision is delivered.
They are regulated in the sense that the law says what the process is to obtain the judge’s decision and what the principles are that the judge should consider, as informed by counsel during the proceedings and to whatever extent the judge may be aware of other relevant principles.
But despite all that the law is not certain. A case which goes all the way in our system can have a finding for the plaintiff at first instance in a magistrates’ court; a finding for the defendant by a single judge on appeal; a finding for the plaintiff by two of three judges on further appeal; and a finding for the defendant by four of seven judges on final appeal. Which is a total of six judges for the plaintiff and six for the plaintiff, but one party wins by a single vote on final appeal despite an equality of judicial opinion overall. Or it can happen that all judges find for one party until the final appellate court decides 4-3 in favour of the other, despite a majority of 8-4 overall in favour of the other.
Then over time the final appellate decision may become judicially regarded as bad law and it is distinguished away to irrelevance even though it is part of the body of principle which should be applied to future cases by all inferior courts.
Again, not a system designed to deliver the certainty that judges are fond of saying is a critical function of the law.
Maybe, but the vast bulk of law is not concerned with any of that, but with tedious administrative detail about the structure and administration of the public service; the size of drains; regulation of occupations; eradication of vermin and noxious weeds; design standards for motor vehicles; weights and measures; immigration; town planning; and an almost endless parade of mind-numbing petty bureaucratic things which in practice create fertile ground for disputation with government and others where often there would be none without the attempt at regulation.
I’d suggest that much of that is implicit, if not explicit, in many laws, from a prohibition on murder, rape, property crimes etc to family law requirements for parents to support their children financially to testators having to make adequate provision for their dependants, because these are good or wise or decent things for us to do. And when people don’t observe these laws they are either punished by the criminal law system or a judge imposes his or her view on the parties to achieve what is good or wise or decent to the extent that such notions underpin the law.
But there can be more explicit laws or legislative expressions which reflect the legislators’ conception of what is good or wise or decent at the time, such as the acknowledgement and protection of human rights in the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/Domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/PubLawToday.nsf/a12f6f60fbd56800ca256de500201e54/DCA32E487DFE99E8CA2576930003C52B/$FILE/06-43a005.pdf and the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
But what if the ‘elected government’ was elected fraudulently, as many in the world are?
Where is the legitimacy in an illegitimate government applying the criminal law to opponents trying to overthrow it, which is often the case with revolutionary movements?
Don’t hold your breath waiting.
Until we eliminate the Stalin / Hitler / Pol Pot / Mugabe / Burma junta / Taliban / sociopathic ruthless bastard gene from the gene pool it’s going to go on forever.I don’t think that gene is going to disappear, not least because from an evolutionary viewpoint it is in many respects the one best equipped to survive because it overwhelms those without that gene.
In the meantime, the only effective way to enforce international law is to emulate State legal systems and have an effective international police force and court system. Which also isn’t going to happen any time soon, because no nation is prepared to surrender its sovereignty.
This is an enjoyable debate. I think it occurs primarily because I am coming from a pragmatic practitioner’s viewpoint and I think you are coming more from a highly informed jurisprudential viewpoint.
