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Kelsen's Theory of Law*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Henry Janzen
Henry Janzen
Affiliation:
Hamilton College
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Extract

Professor Hans Kelsen is the leading exponent of the “pure” theory of law, which is attracting a great deal of attention abroad but as yet has received scant notice in the United States. His theory marks the culmination of the tendency toward a strictly legal theory, represented in the writings of K. F. von Gerber, Paul Laband, and Georg Jellinek. This movement aims to eliminate all purely metaphysical postulates—such as the natural law concepts—from legal theory, as well as to free it from the political tint which it so often manifests. It also endeavors to separate the validity of law from dependence on any personal authority.

This attempt to “depersonalize” law is the last stage of a development that began with the passing of absolutism. At that time, ideas of a “general will” and of popular sovereignty—attended by a demand for “a government of laws and not of men” and by the introduction of the principle of separation of powers—made their appearance, only to be supplanted, more recently, by the concept of the Rechtsstaat.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , April 1937 , pp. 205 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1937

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References

1 See bibliography compiled by Metall, R. A. and appended to Kelsen's, Heine Rechtslehre; Einleitung in die rechtswissenschaftliche Problematik (Leipzig and Vienna, 1934)Google Scholar.

2 For a discussion of this development, see Heller, H., Die Souveränität; Ein Beitrag zur Theorie des Staats-und Völkerrechts (Berlin and Leipzig, 1927), pp. 18–20Google Scholar.

3 The best known exponent of these theories is Georg Jellinek. In the United States, the most prominent representative of the Kompetenz-Kompetenz school is Professor W. W. Willoughby, who has presented to the English-speaking world what he calls the “juristic conception of the state.”

4 See particularly Jellinek, G., Allgemeine Staatslehre (3rd ed., Berlin, 1914), pp. 170ff.Google Scholar, 465–469; Die rechtliche Natur der Staatenvertrage (Vienna, 1880), pp. 38–41Google Scholar; Das System der subjectiven öffentlichen Rechte (Tübingen, 1905), pp. 2, 17, 125Google Scholar; Die Lehre von den Staatenverbindungen (Berlin, 1882), pp. 34, 54–55Google Scholar; Willoughby, W. W., Fundamental Concepts of Public Law (New York, 1924), pp. 30–50, 71–79, 118–120Google Scholar.

For criticism of these theories, see Kelsen, H., Allgemeine Staatslehre (Berlin, 1925), pp. 7–15Google Scholar; Das Problem der Souveränität und die Theorie des Völkerrechts (Tübingen, 1920), pp. 8–30, 43, 184Google Scholar; Nelson, L., Die Rechtswissenschaft ohne Recht (Leipzig, 1917)Google Scholar; Verdross, A., Die Einheit des rechtlichen Weltbildes auf Grundlage der Völkerrechtsverfassung (Tübingen, 1923), pp. 1–2, 33, 37–38Google Scholar. See also below, pp. 211–212.

5 Allgemeine Staatslehre, pp. vii–viii, 6–7; Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 2–4. See also Jones, J. W., “The ‘Pure’ Theory of International Law,” British Yearbook of International Law (1935), p. 19Google Scholar. Mr. Jones says: “The pure theory of law does not assert that law is free from elements of psychological, sociological, and, above all, political importance. What it attempts is to put a purely legal construction upon some of the terms which are fundamental in modern legal science—positive law, the sources of law, the sovereign state.”

6 Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 20–38.

7 Dos Problem der Souveränität, pp. v–vi; Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 2–9.

8 Allgemeine Staatslehre, p. 18. This should satisfy the most exacting of the positivists, and yet, Mr. Stern questions Kelsen's success as a positivist. See Stern, C. W., “Kelsen's Theory of International Law,” in this Review, Vol. 30, pp. 736–741Google Scholar.

9 Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 83–89; Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 1–2; Allgemeine Staatslehre, pp. 103–106. For a similar view, see Anzilotti, , Corso di diritto internazionale, p. 40Google Scholar, quoted by Verdross, A., Die Verfassung der Völkerrechtsgemeinschaft (Vienna and Berlin, 1926), p. 31Google Scholar.

10 Die Verfassung der Völkerrechtsgemeinschaft, pp. 2–3, 21–23, 32, 35.

11 Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 83–86; Reine Reehtslehre, pp. 1–2.

12 Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 7, 9; Allgemeine Staatslehre, pp. 102–103.

13 See Kelsen, H., Allgemeine Staatslehre, pp. 7–15Google Scholar; Hobhouse, L. T., The Metaphysical Theory of the State (New York and London, 1918), p. 66Google Scholar; Spykman, N. J., The Social Theory of Georg Simmel (Chicago, 1925), pp. 51–54Google Scholar.

14 Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 8–14, 16–18, 20; Allgemeine Staatslehre, pp. 106–107.

15 See below, p. 223.

15 J. W. Jones, op. cit., p. 9.

17 Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 38–40; Allgemeine Staatslehre, pp. 106–107.

18 Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 136–137.

19 Völkerrecht und Landesrecht (Leipzig, 1899)Google Scholar.

20 For a different view, see Lauterpacht, H., The Function of Law in the International Community (London, 1933), p. 416Google Scholar.

21 Op. cit., pp. 18–19.

22 Op. cit., p. 421.

23 In view of the contribution of the Austrian school in the field of methodology alone, the statement of Lauterpacht, that “little, if anything, has been added to it [i.e., Triepel's theory] by recent jurists,” seems unwarranted. Ibid., p. 416.

24 Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 94–98, 105–107, 121, 123; Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 136–139.

25 Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 139–143.

26 The assertion that only states as such can be subjects of international legal rights and obligations is another corollary of the personification of the state. In the days when the overlordship of the personal ruler over his domain was regarded as a property right (see for example Grotius, Hugo, De jure belli ac pacis, tr. by Kelsey, F. W., Oxford, 1925, pp. 113–119, 137Google Scholar), it was quite proper to regard him as a possessor of international legal rights and duties. However, the attempt to present the personified state as the heir of the personal ruler to these rights and duties amounts to an attribution of rights and obligations to an abstraction.

27 Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 126–127, 130–133, 139, 162–165; Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 132–134. This argument of the dualists loses all its significance when one considers that in any case law, as viewed by the jurist, regulates only relations among norm-systems. That is to say, although law actually regulates relations among men, it is only through the agency of law that relations are brought into being which are relevant to juristic study. In the eyes of the jurist, a “person” is only a collective name for the aggregate of rights and duties that pertain to an individual or group. Every person in the legal sense is therefore a system of norms, and legal relations are relations within a legal order and among legal systems only. Cf. Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 125–127.

28 Ibid., pp. 130, 133.

29 Reine Rechtslehre, p. 144.

30 Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 38, 145.

31 Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 144–147.

32 J. W. Jones, op. cit., p. 13.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., footnote 1.

35 Cf. Borchard, E. M., Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad (New York, 1927), pp. 18, 181–182, 213–230, 330Google Scholar; Brierly, J. L., The Law of Nations (Oxford, 1930), pp. 137–141Google Scholar; Eagleton, C., The Responsibility of States in International Law (New York, 1928), pp. 12–13, 167–168Google Scholar; Garner, J. W., “Limitations on National Sovereignty in International Law,” in this Review, Vol. 19, pp. 8, 14Google Scholar; Verdross, A., Die Einheit des rechtlichen Weltbildes, p. 163Google Scholar; Die Verfassung der Völkerrechtsgemeinschaft, p. 37; Williams, B. H., American Diplomacy; Policies and Practice (New York and London, 1936), pp. 212–228Google Scholar.

There is no such general agreement concerning the legality of the so-called “international standard” invoked on behalf of foreign creditors and investors in the more unstable countries by their home governments in order to insure them preferential treatment and a greater degree of protection than that enjoyed by the natives. See B. H. Williams, op. cit., pp. 212–216.

36 Das Problem der Souveränität, p. 103; Allgemeine Staatslehre, pp. 128–129.

37 See above, p. 208.

38 Die Verfassung der Völkerrechtsgemeinschaft, p. 17.

39 See above, p. 208.

40 The idea that states are creatures of international law is by no means new. We find it in the writings of Richard Zouche (1590–1660), for example, who says that by international law “nations are separated, kingdoms founded, commerce [is] instituted, and lastly wars [are] introduced.” Juris et judicii fecialis, sive, juris inter gentes, et questionum de eodem explicatio, tr. by Brierly, J. L. (Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1911), p. 1Google Scholar.

41 Reine Rechtslehre, p. 148.

42 Op. cit., p. 14.

43 Ibid., p. 15.

44 Reine Rechtslehre, pp. 148–149.

45 Ibid., p. 150.

46 Ibid., pp. 150–152.

47 Ibid., pp. 129–130.

48 Ibid., p. 129.

49 Ibid., p. 152.

50 Ibid., p. 153.

51 C. W. Stern, op. cit., p. 741.

52 Ibid., pp. 740–741. See also J. W. Jones, op. cit., pp. 11–12.

53 Das Problem der Souveränität, pp. 204–205.

54 See Reine Rechtslehre, p. 153.

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