Hans Kelsen: the science and the politics of law

This volume of a thousand pages covers a myriad of aspects of Kelsen’s life and thought: his Pure Theory of Law; his political writings in praise of democracy; his philosophical, anthropological and sociological discussions; and repercussions of his work in international, administrative and constitutional law. Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) lived across almost a century, crossing from Austria (under the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to Germany (from the years of the Weimar Republic to the risen of Nazism) and to the United States (in the ‘golden’ post-war age). Despite this journey and the praise of his contemporaries, such as Hart and Pound, his ideas are not as globalized as one might think. A kind of provincial schism yet persists between lineages of jurisprudence in civil law (European and Latin-American countries) and in common law (the Anglo-American world). This book began as a series of lectures that took place at the University of São Paulo Law School during the year of 2024. Coming mainly from a place of syncretism, Brazil, the editors and most of the authors of this volume intend to build bridges and integrate Kelsen in the endeavor of constructing a really global or transnational jurisprudence for the 21st century. Of course, renowned and competent scholars coming from Europe and the Americas (such as Brian Bix, Lars Vinx, Leticia Vita and Mario Losano) are very welcome to this journey and here we find fine assessments of Kelsen’s work and legacy from the view of a multitude of legal and jurisprudential traditions.