Antinomies of the United Nations: Hans Kelsen and Alf Ross on the Charter Carl Landauer* Full text available: PDF format ** Abstract In Towards a Realistic Jurisprudence, Alf Ross locates his theoretical position as a via media between the 'pure theory of law' of his teacher, Hans Kelsen, and the American legal realism he identified with Jerome Frank. When Ross and Kelsen came, however, to publish their respective studies of the UN Charter in 1950 - Ross' Constitution of the United Nations and Kelsen's massive The Law of the United Nations - their perspectives converge. This article places their analysis of the UN Charter in the context of their theoretical writings, but despite Kelsen's pure theory of law and Ross' Scandinavian realism, the two share a sense of law's dependence upon sanction and an understanding of the political underpinning of law's creation. And both held a strong commitment to international law doctrine, so that when they came to criticize the Charter, whether for its logical inconsistencies or the increased role of the political, they depict the Charter as ultimately representing a legal system that takes up the space of traditional international law. In their two works, Kelsen and Ross both register a tragic concern about that disappearing act of traditional international law doctrine. * Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. B.A. 1977, Stanford University; Ph.D., 1984, Yale University; J.D. 1991, Harvard Law School; taught history at Yale, Stanford, and McGill Universities (1983-87). For their contributions, the author would like to thank Richard Buxbaum, David Caron, David Kennedy, Martti Koskenniemi, Kenneth Ledford, and Francis Mootz.
	© 1990-2004 European Journal of International Law All comments and suggestions should be sent to webmaster This site is part of the Academy of European Law online, a joint partnership of the Jean Monnet Center at NYU School of Law and the Academy of European Law at the European University Institute. This file was last modified: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 02:51AM