A term used usually to describe legal rules, laws and regulations which are intended to implement public policy, i.e., issues where the state has decided it has a strong interest in legal outcomes, usually in areas such as protecting consumers, workers, competition or antitrust law, public safety, export controls and criminal laws. From a contractual and legal perspective the key aspect of public policy provisions is that they usually cannot be avoided with a choice of law clause and governments will usually stretch their jurisdiction as far as possible in enforcing them.