Hans Kelsen: International Peace through International Law 1 Neo-Kantian Epistemological Assumptions In his essay Das Problem der Souveränität und die Theorie des Völkerrechts, written during the First World War and published in 1920, Kelsen tackled for the first time the theme of the nature and functions of the international legal system.2 With undoubted originality and impressive theoretical development, he puts forward a `monist' view in opposition to the theories of the primacy of state law and of the pluralism on a parity basis of sources of law. For Kelsen there exists only one legal system, which includes in its single normative hierarchy both domestic and international law. The starting point is radical, in that the premises Kelsen takes have their roots in general epistemology. Kelsen adopts the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of science developed by the Marburg school, deducing from them, following the teaching of Rudolf Stammler, the central assumptions of his theory of law. Hermann Cohen's neo-Kantian Platonism instilled in him an almost obsessive methodological concern: to eliminate from the science of law all subjective elements and make it a unitary, objective and therefore `pure' knowledge. The pureness of knowledge - as Cohen had maintained and Kelsen repeated - is nothing other than its `unity' according to the model of the deductive sciences. Logico-mathematical knowledge, by contrast with the empirical disciplines that study natural phenomena, is autonomous in object and method. It is, moreover, transcendental knowledge in the Kantian sense, i.e., `original' and valid in itself, independently of any reference whatever to content, reality or praxis.3 The unity and objectivity of the logico-mathematical method requires the internal unification of each cognitive sphere, including that of the `ought'. For Cohen and for Kelsen, the universe of the `ought' - including the realms of law and the state - is inconceivable without reference to the logical idea of `unity': here too `the unity of the viewpoint of knowledge imperatively requires a monist conception'.4 In this case the unity is represented by mankind as a whole, and it is only here that, according to Kant's teaching, the individual finds meaning and fulfilment. The unitary nature of the legal universe (and the primacy within it of the international law) is for Kelsen an `epistemological hypothesis' which corresponds to a very general option supporting the objectivity of knowledge: it presupposes a `universal objective reason' and an `objectivist world view'. In this epistemology of the unity and objectivity of the science of law, the dimension of state subjectivity, and even the individual and his or her fundamental rights - in a paradoxical equation of the individualism of states with the individualism of individuals - are subordinated to the objectivity of the universal legal system. For Kelsen the subjects who know and will are really only ephemeral and temporary phenomenal forms, the spirits of which are co-ordinated and related only insofar as they are integral parts of the universal world spirit, the knowing reason of which is merely an emanation of the supreme universal reason.... For objectivism the individual is a mere appearance. And the legal theory that takes the objectivity of law to its ultimate consequences and therefore affirms the primacy of international law, must not only remove the idea that individual state subjects are definitive and supreme entities, but ultimately must, to be consistent, reduce the `physical' person too - the `natural' legal subject - to its substrate, that is, to an element of the objective legal system.5 On the contrary, maintains Kelsen, the subjectivism and cognitive relativism that inspire the thesis of the primacy of state sovereignty lead not only to a logic of `pure power' in international relations, but, still more, to the denial of law and of the possibility of legal science.6 Kelsen admits that the acceptance or rejection of these epistemological hypotheses are, in principle, the object of an evaluative choice involving alternative world views.7 Yet he nonetheless maintains that the primacy of international law is imposed by logical and conceptual (`normological') requirements internal to the scientific, that is unitary and objective, interpretation of law: it is a hypothesis that `must be accepted if one intends to interpret social relations as legal relations.'8 Indeed, maintains Kelsen, `the binding nature of law and its entire existence lie in the objectivity of its validity.'9 2 See H. Kelsen, Das Problem der Souveränität und die Theorie des Völkerrechts. Beitrag zu einer Reinen Rechtslehre (1920) [hereinafter Das Problem der Souveränität]; Idem, `Les rapports du système entre le droit interne et le droit international public', 13 RdC (1926) 4; Idem, `Die Einheit von Völkerrecht und staatlichem Recht', 19 Zeitschrift für ausländishes öffentliches Recht (1958); Idem, `Souveränität', in H. Kelsen, A. Merkl, A. Verdross, Die Wiener rechtstheoretische Schule Bd. 2, (1968); Idem, `The Essence of International Law', in K. W. Deutsch, S. Hoffmann (eds.), The Relevance of International Law. Essays in Honour of Leo Gross (1968). 3 See the illuminating pages of the Vorrede in Das Problem der Souveränität, at v-ix. 4 Das Problem der Souveränität, at 123. And elsewhere: `The postulate of the unity of knowledge holds without limit, at normative level too, finding its expression here in the unity and exclusivity of the system of norms taken as valid, or, which amounts to the same thing, in the necessary unity of the viewpoint of consideration, evaluation and interpretation' (ibid, at 104-105). On Kelsen's neo-Kantian epistemology, cf. H. Dreier, Rechtslehre, Staatssoziologie und Demokratietheorie bei Hans Kelsen (1986), at 56-90; see also H. Kelsen and F. Sander, Die Rolle des Neukantianismus in der Reinen Rechtslehre: eine Debatte zwischen Sander und Kelsen (1988); also useful is Carrino, `Presentazione', in H. Kelsen, Il problema della sovranità e la teoria del diritto internazionale (Italian transl.,1989), esp. at xiii-xx. 5 Das Problem der Souveränität, at 316-317. Again, with rigorous legal positivism: `the only rights that exist are those deriving from the legal system or conferred by the state. The "personalities inserted in the state" have their rights (and their obligations) not ... "as bearers of rights, as persons". They are persons only to the extent that the state or the legal order sanction their rights and obligations, or recognize them as persons. Just as the state confers personhood on them, so it can take this quality away from them too. The introduction of slavery as a legal institution is entirely within the possibilities of a legal system or state' (ibid, at 45). 6 See Das Problem der Souveränität, at 317. `Just as the egocentric position of a subjectivist theory of knowledge is bound up with an ethical egoism, so the legal cognitive hypothesis of the primacy of the particular state legal system is coupled with the state egoism of an imperialist policy' (ibid). 7 Ibid, at 314-315, 317; more than thirty years later, in his Principles of International Law (3rd. ed., 1967) [hereinafter Principles], at 569-588, Kelsen retained a position of strict adherence to the Marburg school's neo-Kantian epistemology. 8 Principles, at 587. Kelsen's position on this crucial point nonetheless fluctuates. In Reine Rechtslehre. Einleitung in die rechtswissenschaftliche Problematik (1934) [hereinafter Reine Rechtslehre], the primacy of international law and the dissolution of the `dogma of sovereignty' are presented as a technical outcome of the pure theory of law (English trans. Introduction to the Problems of Legal Theory (1992), at 124-125). In the second edition of Reine Rechtslehre (1960), at 343-345, Kelsen maintains that only the monist conception is laid down by theoretical requirement, whereas the choice between the primacy of international law and the primacy of domestic law can be based only on preferences of an ideological or political nature (English trans. Pure Theory of Law (1967), at 344-347. On this point see in general H. Hart, `Kelsen's Doctrine of the Unity of Law', in H. Hart, Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy (1983). 9 Das Problem der Souveränität, at 317.
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