Can an unwritten law be considered a law, with legal effect?
<p>A question came up with a friend over dinner.</p>
<p>In societies that have no written language, are their laws considered to have legal effect?  Does a law have to be written down in order to be considered a law and enforced?</p>

<p>Different socities, including some that are not considered sovereign nations, create laws, that is enforceable rules of conduct, in different ways. Not all write them down. But they are all Law in that they are rulwa that societies can and will enforce mon their members.</p>
<p>I recommend reading <em>Legal Systems Very Different from Ours</em> by David D. Friedman (Professor of Law at Santa Clara University). There are free versions available on the web, and the final version is <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07MTPZVX9" rel="noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">available from Amazon</a>. It includes chapters on several systems where law is not written, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Pirate Law</li>
<li>Prisoners’ Law</li>
<li>Romani Law</li>
<li>Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne: The Plains Indians</li>
<li>Somali Law</li>
</ul>
<p>Other chapters deal with systems where law may have been written, but its method of formation and operation are very different from the models usually discussed on this site. This include Roman law, Imperial Chinese law, Jewish law, Early Irish Law, and the law of saga-period Iceland.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Does a law have to be a written law in order to be a legal law?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No. Their laws are binding to them even if they are not in writing. To some extent that happens also in modern, bigger civilizations insofar as verbal contracts are binding and enforceable. Likewise, many common practices and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_law" rel="nofollow noreferrer">customary laws</a> are not in writing, yet they have can be dispositive in certain matters.</p>

<p>The definition of <em>what constitutes a law</em> is up to each sovereign nation. Most have a process these days where laws are voted in parliament, countersigned by somebody, and officially published before they take effect. Obviously a society without written language would have a different process.</p>
<p>Supposedly the Romans decided in 451 BC to write their laws down in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Tables" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Twelve Tables</a>. This was the demand of the common people, to make sure that judges would not act capriciously. So in the 300 years before that, the Roman laws were <em>not</em> published in writing. Or so the legend tells, it is hardly reliable history.</p>

legal-writing