Statutory Law

Statutory law is written law (as opposed to oral or customary law) set down by a legislature or other governing authority such as the executive branch of government in response to a perceived need to clarify the functioning of government, improve civil order, answer a public need, to codify existing law, or for an individual or company to obtain special treatment. (Contrast common law.) In addition to the statutes passed by the national or state legislature, lower authorities or municipalities may also promulgate administrative regulations or municipal ordinances that have the force of law — the process of creating these administrative decrees are generally classified as rulemaking. While these enactments are subordinate to the law of the whole state or nation, they are nonetheless a part of the body of a jurisdiction's statutory law.

...Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_law

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Common Law

Common law is law that comes from the common people, vers., legislation, which, comes from the "experts."

Common law comes about at the root levels of society: it is not law that is imposed by some authority from on high. The development of common law was "essentially a private affair concerning millions of people throughout dozens of generations and stretching across several centuries." It is a process that is self adjusting and which goes on everyday unnoticed, without great expense to the state and with out fractionalizing society.

...Peter Landry
http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/BluePete/LawCom.htm

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 27.

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

See: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

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