•  31
    The most extensive account ever, at least in English, of the constitutional doctrine of 'separation of powers', as well as one of the most extensive in English of the idea of 'the rule of law' and its European counterpart, the notion of a 'legal state (German, Rechtsstaat)'. It draws on sources in several languages and disciplines, and many legal systems both ancient and modern. It also proposes a novel basis for judicial independence - outside the tricky sphere of separation of powers.
  •  25
    Facing Walter's Dilemma
    Ratio Juris 10 (4): 397-402. 1997.
    Jörgen Jörgensen (1938) asks why there should not be a valid deduction even though the premises are imperatives (“Jörgensen’s Dilemma”). Robert Walter (1996; 9 Ratio Juris 168), following Hans Kelsen, thinks that there can be a valid deduction if the premises, although in prescriptive (including imperative) language, are actually descriptions of prescriptions. It is suggested that Walter then has his own dilemma: the more possible it is, for such descriptions to be valid, the less likely it …Read more
  •  4
    Hans Kelsen, Legal Scientist
    Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 48 (2): 119-192. 2023.
  • Kelsen and the Exegetical Tradition
    In Richard Tur & William L. Twining (eds.), Essays on Kelsen, Clarendon Press. pp. 123--46. 1986.
    Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law, presented as a form of legal positivism, is interpreted as establishing metaphysical bases of legal science, on analogy with Kant’s “metaphysical bases of natural science (Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft)”. It is asked, in the light of the Pure Theory’s acknowledged difficulties, how far it succeeds in escaping from the exegetical tradition in Western legal theory.