Fifty years on from its original publication, HLA Hart's The Concept of Law is widely recognized as the most important work of legal philosophy published in the twentieth century, and remains the starting point for most students coming to the subject for the first time. In this third edition, Leslie Green provides a new introduction that sets the book in the context of subsequent developments in social and political philosophy, clarifying misunderstandings of Hart's project and highlighting central tensions and problems in the work.

Examines the impact of social forces on the legal system and how the rules and orders promulgated by that legal system affect social behavior. Dr. Friedman explores the relationship between class structure and the work of legal systems in the light of the existing literature and analyzes the influence of the cultural elements contained in a legal system. In a comprehensive analysis of the concept of legal culture, the author sheds new light on the development of our legal norms and the types of legal systems which prevail in a democracy.

Kate Parlett's study of the individual in the international legal system examines the way in which individuals have come to have a certain status in international law, from the first treaties conferring rights and capacities on individuals through to the present day. The analysis cuts across fields including human rights law, international investment law, international claims processes, humanitarian law and international criminal law in order to draw conclusions about structural change in the international legal system. By engaging with much new literature on non-state actors in international law, she seeks to dispel myths about state-centrism and the direction in which the international legal system continues to evolve.

This book grounds judicial review in its deepest foundations: the function, authority, and objectivity of a legal system as a whole.

Reprint of the second revised and enlarged edition, a complete revision of the first edition published in 1934. A landmark in the development of modern jurisprudence, the pure theory of law defines law as a system of coercive norms created by the state that rests on the validity of a generally accepted Grundnorm, or basic norm, such as the supremacy of the Constitution. Entirely self-supporting, it rejects any concept derived from metaphysics, politics, ethics, sociology, or the natural sciences. Beginning with the medieval reception of Roman law, traditional jurisprudence has maintained a dual system of "subjective" law (the rights of a person) and "objective" law (the system of norms). Throughout history this dualism has been a useful tool for putting the law in the service of politics, especially by rulers or dominant political parties. The pure theory of law destroys this dualism by replacing it with a unitary system of objective positive law that is insulated from political manipulation. Possibly the most influential jurisprudent of the twentieth century, Hans Kelsen [1881-1973] was legal adviser to Austria's last emperor and its first republican government, the founder and permanent advisor of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Austria, and the author of Austria's Constitution, which was enacted in 1920, abolished during the Anschluss, and restored in 1945. The author of more than forty books on law and legal philosophy, he is best known for this work and General Theory of Law and State. Also active as a teacher in Europe and the United States, he was Dean of the Law Faculty of the University of Vienna and taught at the universities of Cologne and Prague, the Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Harvard, Wellesley, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Naval War College. Also available in cloth.