The Legal Monism of Alfred Verdross1

Henry Janzen

American Political Science Review, 1935, vol. 29, issue 3, 387-402

Abstract: During the last few decades, legal theorists have given increased attention to the relationship between municipal and international law. Few have attacked the problem with greater acumen than Alfred Verdross, who belongs to that school of Austrians, sometimes referred to as legal purists, with which the names of Hans Kelsen and Fritz Sander are so prominently associated. Verdross' contribution to legal theory has not found as wide an audience as it deserves. This inattention is probably due to the fact that the “theologians” of positivism dismiss Verdross' theory for his disbelief in the “holy trinity” of that school: the personified state, sovereignty, and the will of the state.Verdross professes to adhere to the empirical method. It will be seen that for him a norm is law only if it manifests itself in political reality. But, being a legal purist, Verdross is not concerned with, nor does he attempt to deal with, this objective actuality, i.e., his is not a sociological study. Verdross has been criticised for not limiting himself to a portrayal of facts and for affirming “a priori international legal norms, viewed as an international constitution.”

Date: 1935
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