From the father of Positivism, this book explores the true nature of the norm and the role it plays in relation to state and society. Excellent analysis of positivist normativity.

You should also consider reading The Pure Theory of Law, by Kelsen, as well as books by Rawls, Nozick, MacIntyre, and Posner.

This book rediscovers the most important elements of Law, provinding Neo-Kantian theory aplied to Law and State. Altough, it is one of the most important law books written in the 20th Century, one must prior have read "The Pure Theory of law" in order to come about to a thorough understanding of this manificent pice of art. It has been heavilly criticized by those who follow "The Naturist Theory" and mostly by dogmatic waves, including the Catholic Church, for it proves that relativism refers to Democracy and Republic, and dogmaticism referes to Dictatorship.

"Let there be justice even if the world perishes!" This is the book that proves that it is impossible to implement just system in this physical world. Hans Kelsen builds his logic in a in eloquent and perceptible manners. This is a book that you'll read over and over not because it is difficult to understand, but because it is a great book.

No doubts Kelsen is to be considered a watershed specially concerned to juridical thought. His efforts to break with the natural theories' tradition is of maximum importance for the basis on what the concepts of law and right were built. What is to be focused - as the importance of the works of Hans Kelsen is no new - is the impossibility of having his theory as the only one to be appliable to modern juridical dogmatics. Reading Kelsen is deffinitely a must for the ones who intend to study Law in deep. Nevertheless is to be kept in mind that his work is not and end in itself,but a solid and well structured beginning point.

This is undoubtely the most important book on philosophy of law ever written. It's the book that broke paradigms (in the Thomas Kuhn sense of expression)and brought scientific dignity to the study of law. You can divide the science of law between "before and after" the Pure Theory. Even other really important books, like "the Concept of Law", by Hart, or "On Law and Justice", by Alf Ross, would be not possible if Kelsen hadn't written this book first.

"Pure Theory of Law" is a classic and a must for Law and Philosophy students. Hans Kelsen is extremly successful in building concepts and also his theory. Although this "pure theory"is extremly criticised nowadays, its reading is essential ,and help readers to understand other theories clearly.

Paulson has carved himself the Kelsen niche in the cathedral of Positivism.

Hans Kelsen in the most important legal theorist of the 20th century. This short book is the best introduction to his third way between empiricist and natural law approaches in the philosophy of law. The density of Kelsen's prose is alleviated in part by Paulson's excellent introduction. An important book.

Excellent book, but I think it is the same book as The Pure Theory of Law, or at least very similar.

A Kantian approach to law seems anachronistic in this cyberspace age. Internet legal theory, or the lack thereof, underscores critical stress points as the law is stretched to accomodate new mediums. Just as the moon race demonstrated that some of our absolute laws of physics tend to break down beyond the Earth's atmosphere, whole new bodies of law need to be created to regulate cyberspace. The current situation need not be distinguished from the state of the world in 1940-41, when Professor Hans Kelsen, formerly a judge on the Austrian Constitutional Court, delivered the Holmes lectures at Harvard Law College. Having experienced first-hand the terrors of the Nazi police state, Professor Kelsen recognized that when the State qua legal person violates the law only the united action of other states can remedy those delicts.

World War is not a satisfactory legal solution to the abuse of power by a nation-state. That the Allies were conducting a just war is beside the main point: war is an ineffacacious legal sanction. It's severity may be out of proportion with a state's violations; the uncertainity dilutes the coercive power of war qua legal sanction; the employment of force typically focuses on people that are only technically components of the guilty state: Hence, Professor Kelsen described "International Law as Primitive Law."

After WWI, a specific body, the League of Nations, to regulate European conduct was put together in Geneva, but it was neither a legal nor a natural person. As everyone already knows, it had some panache but no real muscle. Professor Kelsen moved beyond the obvious to explain that the error was an attachment of a fully formed head, i.e., the convocation of delegates, to an inchoate body, i.e., primitive positivistic international law. Although law is coercive in nature, its proper operation depends upon "Voluntary Obedience" to it. The monopoly of the power to take away increases the efficacy of the legal system, but its origin is in the shared customs, or centralization of norms, that makes possible a large body of positive law. Thus, the legal system, including (of course) the fully independent judiciary, must be birthed before the executive or the legislative branches.

Professor Kelsen introduced in these lectures a plan for a new world order, based on either or both a European Union and a United Nations, with a new body of international law. While it might be impossible to impose the positive law of one country, say the United States, on another, say Germany, because of the insurmountable cultural hurdles, there are Kantian categorical imperatives that are derivable as a central base of the new law. The base is quite simple really: All civilized nations believe in "Law and Peace."