Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Individual Sovereignty: From Kelsen to the Increase in the Sources of the Law

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Kelsenian Legal Science and the Nature of Law

Part of the book series: Law and Philosophy Library ((LAPS,volume 118))

Abstract

Kelsenian legal science, centred upon a monist, global legal system fails to acknowledge the complex character of the process of global law making. The process results from an elaborate combination of political and legal principles in a pluralistic legal order composed of three main elements: International law, the State, and the individuals. Within this process, the conventional position of the individual as subject to norms – in a state of subjection– is placed into question, and there arises the possibility of a subject of international law – the participation of subjects in the formulation of the norms which regulate their conduct at the level of international law. In response to this transformation of the position of the individual, the chapter commences from a Kelsenian understanding of positive law which is then extended to the contemporary doctrine of Human Rights. This, in turn, leads to the modification of the modern idea of State sovereignty through the recognition of an individual sovereignty.

This chapter is one of the outcomes as member of the Research Unit “Social Asymmetries and Political Inclusion: Concepts, methods, and policies”, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa (Prin 2010–2011: Local Coordinator, Barbara Henry; National Coordinator, Laura Bazzicalupo) and as researcher at the Università di Camerino (from 2016 onwards).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The explicitly cosmopolitan orientation of Kelsen’s work is particularly evident in the work of the 1920s (for example, (Kelsen, 1920; Kelsen, 1926)). See, also, more generally, for the relationship between Kant, Kelsen and the Vienna School of Legal Theory (Loidolt, 2015). The predominant Kelsenian orientation is, however, to the pre-Kantian philosopher, Christian Wolff’s notion of civitas maxima. Further, for Kelsen the notion of Imperium romanum anticipated Wolff’s civitas maxima (see Garcia-Salmones Rovira 2013, 354). For Habermas, Kant’s cosmopolitan idea, as cosmopolitan law, is one which “bypasses the collective subjects of international law and directly establishes the legal status of the individual subjects by granting them unmediated membership in the association of free and equal world citizens” (Habermas 1998, 181).

  2. 2.

    For Urbinati, “Habermas’ cosmopolitan Kelsenianism is a strategy that aims at preserving the national articulation of democracy rather than dissolving it” and his “acknowledgement that democracy cannot avoid a “self-referential concept of collective self-determination” situates him (malgré lui) in a position of mediation between Carl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen” (Urbinati 2003, 83).

  3. 3.

    For a critical discussion, see Urbinati 2003.

  4. 4.

    The question of the consensus omnium gentium is considered below.

  5. 5.

    “Rex superiorem non recognoscens in regno suo est imperator”: that is the brocard attributed to the glossators (perhaps Marino of Caramanico) in the thirteenth century.

  6. 6.

    Alessandro Ferrara (2003) has sought to situate the moral and legal foundation for Human Rights in an agreement, not between peoples, but between the representatives of all the States in the world. Ferrara proposes a clause through which a State’s reciprocal recognition of new States is conditional upon the new State’s acceptance of this Second Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Ibid., 399). For Ferrara, the admission of ‘new States’ would, however, remain dependent upon their recognition by existing States whose formal statehood, rather than their degree of respect for the standards both of the first and of the second declarations, would render them competent to decide.

  7. 7.

    For example, within the system of international Human Rights law, the emergence of the refugee: “Refugees are in essence stateless (some carry a United Nations passport) but are nonetheless still protected and granted rights as individuals” (Soysal 1994, 142). For a compartive analysis of refugee laws in Europe see (Tedesco 2016).

  8. 8.

    “[T]he international legal community with its specific organs is directly available to the individual person, even against ‘his’ state” (Kelsen 1934b, 253).

  9. 9.

    See (Verdross 1949, 435), regarding the similarities between Scelle and Kelsen concerning the definition of International law.

  10. 10.

    Not necessarily in the sense of legitimate force exerted by a sovereign power, in which case, the Kelsenian would be satisfied, since the law would express its structural link with legitimate coercion.

  11. 11.

    This orientation remains effectively unchanged in Kelsen’s final, posthumous work, the Allgemeine Theorie, of 1979, in which law regulates its own production and enforcement. In Kelsen’s view, an unauthorized act does not produce law, it is legally invalid. In addition, legal right is merely ‘permission’, ‘authorization’ (Berechtigung) from the State.

  12. 12.

    St. Augustine’s City of God, IV, 4: “The same as you do when you infest the whole world; but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber, and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor”. (Augustine 1998, 148)

  13. 13.

    On the idea of circularity, see MacCormick’s description, in the review of Essays on Kelsen: “the occasion when he [Kelsen] interrupted some musings of H. L. A. Hart’s on the concepts of ‘rule’ and ‘norm’ with the exasperated cry ‘Norm is norm is norm’.” (MacCormick 1987, 183).

  14. 14.

    My analysis leaves unexamined the distinct position of the right to rebellion in relation to the American Constitution.

  15. 15.

    However, for Rousseau, there is no pactum subjectionis, but only the pactum societatis: “There is only one contract in the State, and that is the act of association, which in itself excludes the existence of a second” (Rousseau 1923, 86).

  16. 16.

    Here, following Möllers (2008) in the comparison of Kelsen and Böckenförde, “Kelsen shifts the question of the constituent power into an extra-legal area”, while Böckenförde “renounces the crypto-Kelsenian assumption of the extra-legality of the constituent power and defines the pouvoir constituant as a borderline concept (Grenzbegriff), a category that bridges the boundary between the normativity and the facticity of the constitution. The constituent power is the common element of constitutional form and political reality” (Möllers 2008, 99). The position adopted here proceeds beyond Böckenförde’s “rather fictitious” (Ibid., emphasis added) notion of the people by conceiving of co-originality as the only manner to ground the legitimacy of the constituent process.

  17. 17.

    See, also part V, in Habermas (1998).

  18. 18.

    However, for a critique of the ‘Western imperialism of Human Rights’, see Tedesco (2009).

  19. 19.

    For Teubner, “the empty claim of validity” of the law (Teubner 2013, 416).

  20. 20.

    In contrast to the approach of Pitch (1995, 179), in which ritualism, as pharmakon, reveals the paradoxes and ambiguities of the universalism of Human Rights. On pharmakon and Human Rights, see Baccelli (1999, 151).

  21. 21.

    On the problem of the fictio iuris see among others: (Kelsen 1919); (Olivecrona 1971); (Ross 1959); (MacCormick 1987, who affirms that Grundnorm involves a ‘fictive act of will’).

References

  • Althusser, Louis. 1976. Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État (Notes pour une recherche). In Positions (1964–1975), edited by Louis Althusser, 67–125. Paris: Les Éditions sociales.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anders, Günther. 2006. Kafka: pro e contro. Macerata: Quodlibet.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archibugi, Daniele. 1993. The Reform of the UN and Cosmopolitan Democracy: A Critical Review. Journal of Peace Research 30 (3): 301–315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Augustine.1998. The City of God Against the Pagans. Translated and edited by R. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baccelli, Luca. 1999. Il particolarismo dei diritti. Roma: Carocci.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bacon, Francis. 2008. The Advancement of Learning. In Bacon, Francis. The Major Works. Edited by Brian Vickers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baumgold, Deborah. 1993. Pacifying Politics Resistance, Violence, and Accountability in Seventeenth-Century Contract Theory. Political Theory 21 (1): 6–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bobbio, Norberto. 1989. Thomas Hobbes. Turin: Einaudi. English edition: Bobbio, Norberto. 1993. Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law Tradition. Translated by D. Gobetti. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1992. Diritto e potere. Saggisu Kelsen. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1996. The Age of Rights. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bull, Hedley. 1986. Kelsen and International Law. In Essays on Kelsen, edited by Richard Tur and William Twining, 321–336. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. New York: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carrino, Agostino. 1987. Kelsen e il problema della scienza giuridica. Napoli: ESI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cassese, Antonio. 1990. Remarks on Scelle’s Theory of Role Splitting (dédoublement fonctionnel) in International Law. European Journal of International Law 1 (1): 210–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Croce, Mariano, and Andrea Salvatore. 2012. The Legal Theory of Carl Schmitt. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Agostini, Franca. 1999. Breve storia della filosofia nel Novecento. L’anomalia paradigmatica. Torino: Einaudi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawson, Mark, and Floris de Witte. 2013. Constitutional Balance in the EU after the Euro-Crisis. The Modern Law Review 76 (5): 818–844.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Montaigne, Michel. 2003. The Complete Essays. London: Penguin. [Kindle Edition].

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. 1992. Force of Law: “The Mystical Foundation of Authority”. In Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, edited by Drucilla Cornell, Michel Rosenfeld, and David Gray Carlson, 3–67. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrajoli, Luigi. 2007. Principia juris. Teoria del diritto e della democrazia. Vol. II. Laterza: Roma-Bari.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrara, Alessandro. 2003. Two Notions of Humanity and the Judgment Argument for Human Rights. Political Theory 31 (3): 392–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Francioni, Francesco, edited by 2007. Access to Justice as a Human Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garcia-Salmones Rovira, Monica. 2013. The Project of Positivism in International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ginzburg, Carlo. 2015. Paura reverenza terrore. Milano: Adelphi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glennon, Michael J. 1999. The New Interventionism. The Search for a Just International Law. Foreign Affairs 3: 2–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gumplova, Petra. 2014. Law, Sovereignty and Democracy: Hans Kelsen’s Critique of Sovereignty. Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association 67th Annual National Conference, The Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL, 2014-11-29. http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p361108_index.html.

  • Habermas, Jürgen. 1995. Moral Consciousness and the Communicative Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1998. The Inclusion of the Other. Studies in Political Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich. 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2001. Philosophy of Right. Kitchener: Batoche Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hintze, Otto. 1927. Kelsens Staatslehre. Historische Zeitschrift 135 (1): 66–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes, Thomas. 1929. Leviathan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kant, Immanuel. 1917. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay. London: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelsen, Hans. 1911. Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre: entwickelt aus der Lehre vom Rechtssatze. Tübingen. Italian edition: Kelsen, Hans. 1991. Problemi fondamentali della dot- trina del diritto pubblico esposti a partire dalla dottrina della proposizione giuridica. Napoli: ESI.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1919. Zur Theorie der juristischen Fiktionen. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Vaihingers Philosophie des Als Ob. Annalen der Philosophie 1: 630–658.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1920. Das Problem der Souveränität und die Theorie des Völkerrechts. Beitrag zu einer Reinen Rechtslehre. Tübingen: Mohr. Italian edition: Kelsen, Hans. 1989. Il problema della sovranità e la teoria del diritto internazionale: contributo per una dottrina pura del diritto. Milano: Giuffrè.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1926. Les Rapports du système entre le droit interne et le droit international public. Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de droit international 13: 231–331.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1934a. Reine Rechtslehre. Einleitung in die rechtswissenschaftliche Problematik, Wien. Italian edition: Kelsen, Hans. 1973. Lineamenti di dottrina pura del diritto. Torino: Einaudi.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1934b. Die Technik des Völkerrechts und die Organisation des Friedens. Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 14: 240–255.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1941. International Peace-By Court or Government? American Journal of Sociology 46 (4): 571–581.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1944. Peace Through Law. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1951. The Law of the United Nations. A Critical Analysis of Its Fundamental Problems. Seventh printing 2008. Union (NJ): The Lawbook Exchange.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1960. Reine Rechtslehre. Vienna: Verlag Franz Deuticke. English edition: Kelsen, Hans. 1978. Pure Theory of Law. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1979. Allgemeine Theorie der Normen Vienna: Manz Verlag. English edition: Kelsen, Hans. 1991. General Theory of Norms. Translated by M. Hartney. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Controverses sur la Théorie pure du droit. Remarques critiques sur Georges Scelle et Michel Virally. Paris: Panthéon Assas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kesby, Alison. 2012. The Right to Have Rights: Citizenship, Humanity, and International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kojève, Alexandre. 1980. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Lectures on the “Phenomenology of Spirit”. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Torre, Massimo. 1999. Ota Weinberger, Neil MacCormick e il neoistituzionalismo giuridico. In Filosofi del diritto contemporanei, edited by Gianfrancesco Zanetti, 1–32. Milano: Raffaello Cortina.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010. Law as Institution. Dordrecht/Heidelberg/London/New York: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Landauer, Carl. 2003. Antinomies of the United Nations: Hans Kelsen and Alf Ross on the Charter. European Journal of International Law 14 (4): 767–799.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laurent, Pierre. 1982. Pufendorf et la loi naturelle. Paris: J. Vrin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loidolt, Sophie. 2015. Kant, Kelsen and the Vienna School of Legal Theory. In Detours: Approaches to Kant in Vienna, in Austria, and in Eastern Europe, edited by Violetta L. Waibel, 468–475. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • MacCormick, Neil. 1987. Review of Essays on Kelsen. Philosophical Books 28 (3): 183–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Möllers, Christoph. 2008. “We are (afraid of) the people”: Constituent Power in German Constitutionalism. In The Paradox of Constitutionalism, Constituent Power and Constitutional Form, edited by Martin Loughlin and Neil Walker, 87–106. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Muraro, Luisa. 2013. Autorità. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musio, Alessio. 2011. Etica della sovranità. Questioni antropologiche in Kelsen e Schmitt. Milano: Vita & Pensiero.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nickel, Rainer. 2008. Private and Public Autonomy Revisited: Habermas’ Concept of Co-originality in Times of Globalization and the Militant Security State. In The Paradox of Constitutionalism, Constituent Power and Constitutional Form, edited by Martin Loughlin and Neil Walker, 147–168. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Oestreich, Gerhard. 1968. Geschichte der Menschenrechte und Grundfreiheiten im Umris, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot. Italian edition, Oestreich, Gerhard. 2004. Storia dei diritti umani e delle liberta fondamentali. Roma-Bari: Laterza.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olivecrona, Karl. 1971. Law as Fact. London: Stevens & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pitch, Tamar. 1995. L’antropologia dei diritti umani. In I diritti nascosti. Approccio antropologico e prospettiva sociologica, edited by A. Giasanti and G. Maggioni, 177–202. Milano: Cortina.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pufendorf, Samuel. 1672. De jure naturae et gentium. Londini Scanorum: Sumtibus Adami Junghans, Imprimebat Vitus Haberegger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, Alf. 1959. On Law and Justice. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1923. The Social Contract & Discourses. London: Dent.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sassen, Saskia. 2007. A Sociology of Globalization. New York/London: W.W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schütze, Robert. 2012. European Constitutional Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Seidler, Michael J. 1996. “Turkish Judgment” and the English Revolution: Pufendorf on the Right of Resistance. In Samuel Pufendorf und die europäische Frühaufklärung. Werk und Einfluß eines deutschen Bürgers der Gelehrtenrepublik nach 300 Jahren (1694–1994), edited by F. Palladini and G. Hartung, 83–104. Berlin: Akademie.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soysal, Yasemin. 1994. Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tacitus, Cornelius. 2008. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius and Nero. Translated by J.C. Yardley. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tedesco, Francescomaria. 2003. Affrettate tanatografie. Verso un nomos imperiale? Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia del Diritto 1: 101–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Diritti umani e relativismo. Roma-Bari: Laterza.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Eccedenza sovrana. Milano-Udine: Mimesis.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016. Modelli europei di accoglienza dei rifugiati e richiedenti asilo. Roma: Aracne.

    Google Scholar 

  • Teubner, Günther. 2013. The Law Before its Law. Franz Kafka on the (Im)possibility of Law’s Self- Reflection. German Law Journal 2: 405–422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Urbinati, Nadia. 2003. Can Cosmopolitical Democracy be Democratic? In Debating Cosmopolitics, edited by Daniele Archibugi, 67–85. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Verdross, Alfred. 1949. On the Concept of International Law. American Journal of International Law 43 (3): 435–440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Von Bernstorff, Jochen. 2010. The Public International Law Theory of Hans Kelsen: Believing in Universal Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Weinberger, Ota. 1992. Beyond Positivism and Natural Law. In An Insitutional Theory of Law: New Approaches to Legal Positivism, edited by Neil MacCormick and Ota Weinberger, 111–126. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zolo, Danilo. 1999. A Cosmopolitan Philosophy of International Law? A Realistic Approach. Ratio Juris 12 (4): 429–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, University of Camerino, Camerino, Italy

    Francescomaria Tedesco

Authors
  1. Francescomaria Tedesco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francescomaria Tedesco .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Law and Criminology, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, United Kingdom

    Peter Langford

  2. Lancaster University Law School, Lancaster, United Kingdom

    Ian Bryan

  3. Department of Law and Criminology, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, United Kingdom

    John McGarry

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Tedesco, F. (2017). Individual Sovereignty: From Kelsen to the Increase in the Sources of the Law. In: Langford, P., Bryan, I., McGarry, J. (eds) Kelsenian Legal Science and the Nature of Law. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 118. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51817-6_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51817-6_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51816-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51817-6

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation