Common-law Legal Systems
Common law constitutes the basis of the federal law in the United States and the states laws （except Louisiana）， the federal law in Canada and the provinces laws （except Quebec）， the legal systems of England， Wales and Northern Ireland of Britarn， the Republic of Ireland， Australia， New Zealand， South Africa， India， Sri Lanka， Malaysia， Brunei， Pakistan， Singapore， Malta， Hung Kong Special Administrative Region of China， and many other generally English-speaking countries or Commonwealth countries. The main alternative to the common-law system is the civil-law system， which is used in continental Europe， and most of the rest of the world.
The opposition between civil-law and common-law legal systems has become increasingly blurred， with the growing importance of jurisprudence（almost like case law but in name） in civil-law countries， and the growing importance of statute law and codes in common-law countries. An example of this is the United States， where matters of criminal law， commercial law （the Uniform Commercial Code2 in the early 1960s） and procedure （the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in the 1930s and the Federal Rules of Evidence3 in the 1970s） have been codified.
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