About
Hans Kelsen
Biography
Hans Kelsen (1881-1973), a scholar of Jewish origin born in Austro-Hungary and expelled from Germany by the National Socialists in 1933, who found a new home in exile in the USA, is still one of the most discussed legal theorists on a global scale more than 40 years after his death. He is one of the very few legal scholars to have gained worldwide recognition outside his native German-speaking circle and to have had a lasting influence on legal discourse in both Eastern and Southern Europe, in East Asia and Latin America, and even in the Anglosphere.
The Legal Positivist
His skeptical and consistent legal positivism, the “Reine Rechtslehre”, aims to provide as exact a description and structural analysis of modern legal systems as possible and thus to consistently separate the academic study of law from its creation and further development. In this “disenchantment” endeavor, he proves to be an avowed advocate of scientific modernism. His biography - Jewish descent, expulsion from Germany and exile in the Anglosphere - also places him in line with other protagonists such as the physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and the other Viennese, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and (Sir) Karl R. Popper (1902-1994), as well as his classmate, the economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973).
The Constitutional Lawyer
It is no coincidence that the liberal legal positivist Kelsen, who was initially a constitutional advisor to the first Austrian Chancellor, the Social Democrat Karl Renner (1870-1950), and then one of the leading figures of the new Constitutional Court during the establishment of the First Republic, developed a pluralistic theory of democracy that responds to heterogeneity and does not rely on homogeneity, that opens up a legitimate space for political parties to develop and that proves the systemic compatibility of a constitutional jurisdiction endowed with the power to review norms in a liberal democracy.
Work and Legacy
Kelsen published for more than six decades, in changing political systems, on different legal systems and in numerous languages. His immense oeuvre comprises around 18,000 printed pages of original publications as well as his academic estate, which is preserved and maintained at the Hans Kelsen Institute (HKI), an Austrian federal foundation founded during Kelsen's lifetime and based in Vienna.
CV
| 1881 | October 11: Born in Prague as the son of Adolf Kelsen (born 1850 in Brody, Galicia, died 1907 in Vienna) and Auguste Löwy (born 1859 in Neuhaus, Bohemia, died 1950 in Bled, Yugoslavia) |
| 1884 | Family relocates to Vienna |
| 1900 | July 9: Graduation (Matura) from the Academic Gymnasium in Vienna |
| 1901 | Begins studies in law and political science at the University of Vienna (until 1906) |
| 1905 | June 10: Conversion to Catholicism |
| 1906 | May 18: Doctorate in law (Dr. jur.) from the University of Vienna |
| 1908 | Study visits to Heidelberg and Berlin |
| 1910 | Study visits to Heidelberg and Berlin |
| 1911 | March 9: Habilitation in constitutional law and legal philosophy at the University of Vienna |
| 1911 | Summer/Fall: Lecturer in constitutional and administrative law at the Imperial Royal Austrian Commercial Museum’s Export Academy in Vienna, begins teaching as a private lecturer in constitutional law and legal philosophy at the University of Vienna |
| 1912 | May 20: Conversion to Protestant faith (Augsburg Confession) |
| 1912 | May 25: Marriage to Margarete Bondi (born 1890 in Vienna, died 1973 in Berkeley); the marriage results in two daughters: Anna (Hanna) Renate (married name Oestreicher; born 1914 in Vienna, died 2001 in New York) and Maria Beatrice (married name Feder; born 1915 in Vienna, died 1994 in Kensington, USA) |
| 1914 | Military service, eventually holding the rank of captain-auditor (served in the War Welfare Office, at the Divisional Military Court in Vienna, in the legal department of the Imperial Royal Ministry of War, and as advisor to the last Imperial Royal War Minister, Colonel General Stöger-Steiner) |
| 1915 | September 14: Appointed titular associate professor |
| 1918 | October 1: Permanent associate professor at the University of Vienna |
| 1919 | March 30: Appointed member of the Austrian Constitutional Court |
| 1919 | August 1: Full professor of constitutional and administrative law at the University of Vienna (until 1930) |
| 1920 | Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Vienna for the 1920/1921 academic year |
| 1921 | July 15: Elected member of the Constitutional Court under the 1920 Federal Constitutional Law, lifetime appointment (until 1930) |
| 1926 | First lecture at the Hague Academy of International Law |
| 1930 | Member of the board of the International Institute of Public Law, Paris |
| 1930 | February 15: Ends membership in the Constitutional Court |
| 1930 | October 1: Appointed full professor of international law at the University of Cologne (until 1933) |
| 1932 | Second lecture at the Hague Academy of International Law |
| 1932 | November 1: Appointed Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cologne for the 1932/1933 academic year (until April 11, 1933) |
| 1933 | April 13: Suspended from his position as a university professor under the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, effective immediately |
| 1933 | September 18: Begins professorship in international law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI), Geneva (until 1940) |
| 1934 | January 1: Retired as professor from the University of Cologne |
| 1936 | October: Assumes the Chair of International Law at the German University in Prague (until 1938) |
| 1938 | End of winter semester 1937/1938: End of teaching in Prague |
| 1940 | May 28: Hans and Margarete Kelsen leave Geneva |
| 1940 | June 21: Arrives in New York City |
| 1940 | Lecturer at Harvard Law School for the "Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectureship" |
| 1942 | Summer: Visiting professor at Wellesley College, Massachusetts |
| 1942 | June 30: Visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley |
| 1943 | July 2: Lecturer in Political Science at Berkeley (until 1945) |
| 1945 | June 21: Full professor in the Department of Political Science at Berkeley for "International law, jurisprudence, and origin of legal institutions" (until October 31, 1951) |
| 1945 | July 28: Granted U.S. citizenship |
| 1952 | May 27: Farewell lecture at Berkeley |
| 1952 | Visiting professor at HEI, Geneva |
| 1953 | Third lecture at the Hague Academy of International Law |
| 1953 | Visiting professor at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island |
| 1973 | April 19: Hans Kelsen dies in Orinda (near Berkeley) |
Honors
| 1936 | April 20: Honorary Doctorate from the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht |
| 1936 | September 18: Honorary Doctorate from Harvard University |
| 1941 | September 29: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Chicago |
| 1947 | May 13: Elected Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences |
| 1947 | June 24: Honorary Professor at the University of Vienna |
| 1949 | June 25: Honorary Professor at the Universidad de Rio de Janeiro |
| 1951 | July 21: Honorary Doctorate from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México |
| 1952 | January 28: Honorary Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley |
| 1952 | July 4: "Certificate of Merit" from the American Society of International Law |
| 1954 | Honorary Membership of the Institut de Droit International (IDI) |
| 1954 | May 10: Honorary Doctorate from the Universidad de Salamanca |
| 1960 | April 5: Honorary Professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México |
| 1960 | Awarded the "Premio Internazionale della Fondazione Antonio Fetrinelli" by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome |
| 1961 | July 20: Honorary Doctorate from the Free University of Berlin (Dr. phil.) |
| 1961 | September 18: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Vienna (Dr. rer. pol.) |
| 1961 | September 19: Grand Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany |
| 1961 | September 27: Honorary Doctorate from the New School for Social Research, New York ("Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa") |
| 1963 | November 7: Honorary Doctorate from the Université Paris |
| 1966 | October 25: Ring of Honor of the City of Vienna (together with Heimito von Doderer) |
| 1967 | February 23: Grand Silver Decoration with Star of the Republic of Austria |
| 1967 | June 1: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Salzburg (Dr. phil.) |
| 1971 | October 30: On Kelsen's 90th birthday, the Republic of Austria establishes the "Hans Kelsen Institute" federal foundation in Vienna to preserve his scientific work |
| 1972 | June 20: Honorary Doctorate from the Université Strasbourg |
Important Writings
| 1905 | The Political Theory of Dante Alighieri, Leipzig and Vienna |
| 1907 | Commentary on the Austrian Imperial Council Election Regulations (Law of January 26, 1907, RGBl. No. 17), Vienna. |
| 1911 | Main Problems of the Theory of the State, Developed from the Theory of the Legal Norm, Tübingen (2nd ed., Tübingen 1923). |
| 1911 | On the Boundaries Between Legal and Sociological Methods, Tübingen. |
| 1913 | On State Wrongdoing. Also a Contribution to the Question of Legal Person Liability and the Theory of the Defective State Act, in: Grünhuts Journal of Private and Public Law of the Present 40 (1913), pp. 1–114. |
| 1913 | On the Theory of Public Legal Acts, in: AöR 31 (1913), pp. 53–98 and 190–249. |
| 1913 | Law as a Normative and Cultural Science. A Method-Critical Study, in: Schmoller's Yearbook for Legislation, Administration, and Political Economy in the German Empire 40 (1916), pp. 1181–1239. |
| 1919 | On the Theory of Legal Fictions. With Special Consideration of Vaihinger's Philosophy of 'As If,' in: Annals of Philosophy 1 (1919), pp. 630–658. |
| 1920 | The Problem of Sovereignty and the Theory of International Law. Contribution to a Pure Theory of Law, Tübingen (2nd ed., Tübingen 1928). |
| 1920 | Socialism and State. A Study of Marxist Political Theory, Leipzig (2nd ed., Leipzig 1923; 3rd ed., Vienna 1965). |
| 1920 | On the Essence and Value of Democracy, Tübingen (2nd ed., Tübingen 1929). |
| 1922 | Legal Science and Law. Resolution of an Attempt to Overcome 'Legal Dogmatism,' in: ZöR 3 (1922), pp. 103–235. |
| 1922 | The Sociological and Juristic Concept of the State, Tübingen (2nd ed., Tübingen 1928). |
| 1923 | Austrian Constitutional Law. An Outline, Presented Historically, Tübingen. |
| 1925 | General Theory of the State, Berlin. |
| 1925 | The Problem of Parliamentarism, Vienna. |
| 1926 | Outline of a General Theory of the State, Vienna. |
| 1927 | Federal Execution. A Contribution to the Theory and Practice of the Federal State, with Special Reference to the German Empire and the Austrian Federal Constitution, in: Festschrift for Fritz Fleiner on His 60th Birthday, Tübingen 1927, pp. 127–187. |
| 1927 | Democracy, in: Proceedings of the Fifth German Sociologists’ Conference, September 26-29, 1926 in Vienna, Tübingen, pp. 37–68. |
| 1927 | The Constitution of Austria, in: JöR 15 (1927), pp. 51–103. |
| 1928 | The Philosophical Foundations of Natural Law Theory and Legal Positivism, Charlottenburg. |
| 1928 | Legal History vs. Legal Philosophy? A Rebuttal, Vienna. |
| 1929 | Legal Formalism and Pure Theory of Law, in: JW 1929, pp. 1723–1726. |
| 1929 | On the Essence and Value of Democracy, 2nd ed., Tübingen. |
| 1929 | The Nature and Development of Judicial Review, in: VVDStRL 5 (1929), pp. 30–88. |
| 1930 | The State as Integration. A Fundamental Debate, Vienna. |
| 1931 | Who Should Be the Guardian of the Constitution?, in: Die Justiz 6 (1931), pp. 576–628. |
| 1932 | Defense of Democracy, in: Blätter der Staatspartei 2 (1932), pp. 90–98. |
| 1933 | Platonic Justice, in: Kant Studies 38 (1933), pp. 91–117. |
| 1933 | State Form and Ideology, Tübingen. |
| 1934 | Pure Theory of Law. Introduction to Legal Science, Leipzig and Vienna (2nd ed., Vienna 1960). |
| 1934 | On the Theory of Interpretation, in: International Journal of Legal Theory 8 (1934), pp. 9–17. |
| 1937 | Science and Democracy, in: NZZ No. 321 of February 23, 1937, pp. 1–2. |
| 1941 | Retribution and Causality. A Sociological Study, The Hague and Chicago. |
| 1943 | Society and Nature. A Sociological Inquiry, Chicago and London (1946). |
| 1944 | Peace Through Law, Chapel Hill. |
| 1945 | General Theory of Law and State, Cambridge (Mass.). |
| 1945 | The Legal Status of Germany according to the Declaration of Berlin, in: AJIL 39 (1945), pp. 518–526. |
| 1950 | The Law of the United Nations. A Critical Analysis of Its Fundamental Problems, London and New York. |
| 1952 | Principles of International Law, New York (2nd ed., New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, and London 1966). |
| 1953 | Pure Theory of Law. Introduction to Legal Science, Neuchâtel. |
| 1953 | What Is Justice?, Vienna. |
| 1955 | The Communist Theory of Law, New York and London. |
| 1955 | Foundations of Democracy, in: Ethics 6 (1955), pp. 1–101. |
| 1959 | A 'Realistic' and Pure Theory of Law. Remarks on Alf Ross: On Law and Justice, in: ÖZöR 10 (1959), pp. 1–25. |
| 1960 | Pure Theory of Law. With an Appendix: The Problem of Justice, 2nd ed., Vienna. |
| 1965 | What Is Legal Positivism?, in: JZ 1965, pp. 465–469. |
| 1979 | General Theory of Norms, Vienna (posthumous). |
| 1985 | The Illusion of Justice. A Critical Examination of Plato's Social Philosophy, Vienna (posthumous). |