Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values; as well as the relationship between law and other fields of study, including economics, ethics, history, sociology, and political philosophy.
The Kellogg–Briand Pact or Pact of Paris – officially the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy – is a 1928 international agreement on peace in which signatory states promised not to use war to resolve "disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them". The pact was signed by Germany, France, and the United States on 27 August 1928, and by most other states soon after. Sponsored by France and the U.S., the Pact is named after its authors, United States Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French foreign minister Aristide Briand. The pact was concluded outside the League of Nations and remains in effect.
In jurisprudence and legal philosophy, legal positivism is the theory that the existence of the law and its content depend on social facts, such as acts of legislation, judicial decisions, and customs, rather than on morality. This contrasts with natural law theory, which holds that law is necessarily connected to morality in such a way that any law that contradicts morality lacks legal validity.
Ronald Myles Dworkin was an American legal philosopher, jurist, and scholar of United States constitutional law. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University and Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London. Dworkin had taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford, where he was the Professor of Jurisprudence, successor to philosopher H. L. A. Hart.
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was an English legal philosopher. One of the most influential legal theorists of the 20th century, he was instrumental in the development of the theory of legal positivism, which was popularised by his book, The Concept of Law. Hart's contributions focused on the nature of law, the relationship between law and morality, and the analysis of legal rules and systems, introducing concepts such as the "rule of recognition" that have shaped modern legal thought.
Lon Luvois Fuller was an American legal philosopher best known as a proponent of a secular and procedural form of natural law theory. Fuller was a professor of law at Harvard Law School for many years, and is noted in American law for his contributions to both jurisprudence and the law of contracts. His 1958 debate with the British legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart in the Harvard Law Review was important in framing the modern conflict between legal positivism and natural law theory. In his widely discussed 1964 book The Morality of Law, Fuller argues that all systems of law contain an "internal morality" that imposes on individuals a presumptive obligation of obedience. Robert S. Summers said in 1984: "Fuller was one of the four most important American legal theorists of the last hundred years".
Legality, in respect of an act, agreement, or contract is the state of being consistent with the law or of being lawful or unlawful in a given jurisdiction, and the construct of power.
Pure Theory of Law is a book by jurist and legal theorist Hans Kelsen, first published in German in 1934 as Reine Rechtslehre, and in 1960 in a much revised and expanded edition. The latter was translated into English in 1967 as Pure Theory of Law. The title is the name of his general theory of law, Reine Rechtslehre.
Jeremy Waldron is a New Zealand legal philosopher. He holds a University Professorship at the New York University School of Law, is affiliated with the New York University Department of Philosophy, and was formerly the Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford University. Waldron also holds an adjunct professorship at Victoria University of Wellington. Waldron is regarded as one of the world's leading legal and political philosophers.
Leslie John Green is a Scottish-Canadian legal scholar specialising in jurisprudence. He is Professor of the Philosophy of Law and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford University, and Professor of Law and Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Queen's University, Kingston. A legal positivist, his research also focuses on political philosophy and constitutional theory.
Karl Loewenstein was a German lawyer and political scientist, regarded as one of the prominent figures of Constitutional law in the twentieth century.
The Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes was a proposal to the League of Nations presented by British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and his French counterpart Édouard Herriot. It set up compulsory arbitration of disputes and created a method to determine the aggressor in international conflicts. All legal disputes between nations would be submitted to the World Court. It called for a disarmament conference in 1925.
Jules Leslie Coleman is a scholar of law and jurisprudence. He was the Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School until 2012. Coleman is chief academic officer at MYX, a hybrid approach to higher education with campuses starting fall 2021. Before joining MYX, he was the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning at New York University.
Analytical jurisprudence is a philosophical approach to law that draws on the resources of modern analytical philosophy to try to understand its nature. Since the boundaries of analytical philosophy are somewhat vague, it is difficult to say how far it extends. H. L. A. Hart was probably the most influential writer in the modern school of analytical jurisprudence, though its history goes back at least to Jeremy Bentham.
Jurisprudence of values or jurisprudence of principles is a school of legal philosophy. This school represents, according to some authors, a step in overcoming the contradictions of legal positivism and, for this reason, it has been considered by some authors as a post-positivism school. Jurisprudence of values is referred to in various works all over the world.
Oona Anne Hathaway is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, Professor of the Yale University Department of Political Science, Professor at the Jackson School of Global Affairs, and Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. She has been a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law for the Legal Adviser at the United States Department of State since 2005. In 2014-15, she took leave to serve as Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense, where she was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence. She is the Director of the annual Yale Cyber Leadership Forum and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Law's Empire is a 1986 text in legal philosophy by Ronald Dworkin, in which the author continues his criticism of the philosophy of legal positivism as promoted by H.L.A. Hart during the middle to late 20th century. The book introduces Dworkin's Judge Hercules as an idealized version of a jurist with extraordinary legal skills who is able to challenge various predominating schools of legal interpretation and legal hermeneutics prominent throughout the 20th century. Judge Hercules is eventually challenged by Judge Hermes, another idealized version of a jurist who is affected by an affinity to respecting historical legal meaning arguments which do not affect Judge Hercules in the same manner. Judge Hermes' theory of legal interpretation is found by Dworkin in the end to be inferior to the approach of Judge Hercules.
Kenneth Einar Himma is an American philosopher, author, lawyer, academic and lecturer.
Salmon Oliver Levinson was a practicing attorney who specialized in industrial organizations and corporate law. He was active in the peace movement in the 1920s and was responsible for drafting the Kellogg–Briand Pact, signed in 1928. Levinson noted: "We should have, not as now, laws of war, but laws against war; just as there are no laws of murder or of poisoning, but laws against them.” The treaty was the first international agreement to make war illegal. The treaty commits the parties to "condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy" and agree that all disputes should be settled peacefully.
A legal norm is a binding rule or principle, or norm, that organisations of sovereign power promulgate and enforce in order to regulate social relations. Legal norms determine the rights and duties of individuals who are the subjects of legal relations within the governing jurisdiction at a given point in time. Competent state authorities issue and publish basic aspects of legal norms through a collection of laws that individuals under that government must abide by, which is further guaranteed by state coercion. There are two categories of legal norms: normativity, which regulates the conduct of people, and generality, which is binding on an indefinite number of people and cases. Diplomatic and legislative immunity refers to instances where legal norms are constructed to be targeted towards a minority and are specifically only binding on them, such as soldiers and public officials.
