Law is a system of rules that are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior. Laws can be made by a collective legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes, by the executive through decrees and regulations, or by judges through binding precedent, normally in common law jurisdictions. A law is a universal principle that describes the fundamental nature of something, the universal properties and the relationships between things, or a description. The system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties. A body of rules of conduct of binding legal force and effect, prescribed, recognized, and enforced by controlling authority. Law is a system of rules that govern a society with the intention of maintaining social order, upholding justice and preventing harm to individuals and property.