WHAT ARE THE BRANCHES OF SOCIAL LAW? - ARTE - 2025

The branches of social law are the right to work, the right to social security, immigration law and agrarian law. Social law is a unified concept of law, which replaces the classic division of public law and private law.

The term has been used both to designate legal areas that are between public and private subjects, such as corporate law, competition law, labor law and social security, or as a unified concept for all law based on associations..

In reaction to the classical jurisprudence of the 19th century, lawyers questioned a rigid division between private law and public law.

The German philosopher Otto von Gierke worked to develop a complete history and theory of Social Law (Soziales Recht). The key principles of Gierke's work were adopted and brought into English jurisprudence by Frederick W. Maitland.

In France, Lion Duguit developed the concept of social law in his 1911 book, Le droit social, le droit individuel et la transformation de l'état. A common thread has been an attachment to social justice in a democratic society.

This became a central guideline for the thinking of American legal realists during the Lochner era of the early 20th century.

Inspired by the postulates of justice, rights are the institutional order that establishes human behavior in society. Therefore, it is a set of regulations that resolve social conflicts. Hence its importance.

Main branches of social law

Social law is divided into four main branches of great importance worldwide.

Labor law

Labor law intervenes in the relationship between workers, employers, unions, and the government.

Collective labor law refers to the tripartite relationship between employee, employer and union. Individual labor law refers to the rights of workers at work and through the employment contract.

Employment standards are social standards (in some cases also technical standards) for the socially acceptable minimum conditions under which employees or contractors can work. Government agencies enforce labor laws (legislative, regulatory, or judicial).

Labor law emerged in parallel with the Industrial Revolution, as the relationship between worker and employer shifted from small-scale production studies to large-scale factories.

Workers were looking for better conditions and the right to join (or avoid joining) a union, while employers were looking for a more predictable, flexible and less expensive workforce.

The state of labor law at any moment is therefore the product and component of the struggles between the various social forces.

As England was the first country to industrialize, it was also the first to face the often dire consequences of the Industrial Revolution in a less regulated economic environment.

Over the course of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the foundations of modern labor law were slowly established, as some of the most egregious aspects of working conditions were ameliorated through legislation.

This was achieved in large part through concerted pressure from social reformers, notably Anthony Ashley-Cooper.

The right to social security

The right to social security guarantees everyone, regardless of age or ability to work, the necessary means to acquire basic needs and services.

Several fundamental principles of human rights are fundamental to guarantee the right to social security:

• Integrity: social security implicitly covers all risks inherent in the loss of means of subsistence for reasons beyond the control of a person.
• Flexibility: the retirement age should be flexible, depending on the occupations carried out and the work capacity of the elderly, taking due account of demographic, economic and social factors.
• Non-discrimination: Social security must be provided without discrimination (in intent or effect) based on health status, race, ethnicity, age, sex, sexuality, disability, language, religion, national origin, income, or social status.

Immigration law

Immigration law refers to national government policies that control immigration and deportation of people, and other matters such as citizenship.

Immigration laws vary from country to country, as well as according to the political climate of the time, as sentiments can shift from the broadly inclusive to the deeply exclusive of new immigrants.

The immigration law relating to the citizens of a country is regulated by international law. The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that all countries will allow their own citizens to enter.

Some countries may maintain fairly strict laws regulating both the right of entry and domestic rights, such as length of stay and the right to participate in government.

Most countries have laws that designate a process for naturalization, by which foreigners can become citizens.

Agricultural law

Agrarian laws are laws that regulate the possession and exploitation of agricultural land. Since all the old economies were overwhelmingly agricultural, the ruling classes always had considerable incentives to establish such rules.

Agrarian laws (from the Latin ager, meaning "land") were laws among the Romans that regulated the division of public lands, or ager publicus.

Various attempts to reform the agrarian laws were part of the sociopolitical struggle between aristocrats and commoners known as the Conflict of Orders.

There were three types of land in ancient Rome: private land, common pasture, and public land. By the second century BC, wealthy landowners had begun to dominate the agrarian areas of the empire by "renting" large tracts of public land and treating it as if it were private.

From its beginning to the present, agrarian law remains in force as one of the most important branches of social law.

References

1. Otto von Gierke, The Social Role of Private Law (2016) translated and introduced by E McGaughey, originally Die soziale Aufgabe des Privatrechts (Berlin 1889).
2. G Gurvitch, 'The Problem of Social Law' (1941) 52 (1) Ethics 17.
3. Weissbrodt, David S; de la Vega, Connie (2007). International human rights law: an introduction. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-8122-4032-0.
4. Proper, Emberson. Colonial Immigration Laws. Buffalo: William S Hein & Co., Inc., 2003. Print.
5. Barthold Georg Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. ii, p. 166 ff, Lectures on the History of Rome, p. 89 ff, ed. Schmitz (1848).