Usage of definite article

To me, the context supplies the shared familiarity. In other words, there were "old" laws but "new" ones have appeared and their newness makes them specific and separates them out from the general category of "laws" so that both reader and writer know which laws are being discussed.

It's this separating out a countable noun from a larger more general category, which seems central to using the definite article, or at least that is what I have read, as I have labored over how to teach this aspect of English.

But the previous poster is correct, there are endless subtleties associated with learning how to use articles in English