Hans Kelsen Works

Hans Kelsen (1881–1973), a scholar of Jewish origin born in Austria-Hungary and expelled from Germany by the National Socialists in 1933, found his new home in exile in the United States. Even long after his death he remains one of the most debated legal theorists worldwide. He is one of the very few legal scholars who has gained worldwide recognition beyond his native German‑speaking sphere and who has had a lasting and far from negligible influence on legal discourse in Eastern and Southern Europe, East Asia and Latin America, and even in the Anglosphere.

His rigorously sceptical legal positivism, the “Reine Rechtslehre” (Pure Theory of Law), aims to provide as accurate a description and structural analysis of modern legal systems as possible, thereby separating the scientific study of law from its creation and development. In this sense he is a staunch advocate of scientific modernity. thereby consistently separating the scientific study of law from its creation and development. In this way, he proves himself to be an avowed advocate of scientific modernity. 

Kelsen published over more than six decades, in changing political systems, on different legal systems and in numerous languages. His immensely extensive oeuvre comprises not only around 18,000 pages of original publications, but also the scientific legacy preserved and maintained by the Hans Kelsen Institute (HKI), an Austrian federal foundation based in Vienna that was founded during Kelsen's lifetime.

Despite his global significance, there is no edition of his scattered and multilingual opera omnia. The forthcoming “Hans Kelsen Werke” (HKW) makes Kelsen's complete works accessible in a historical-critical hybrid edition. In cooperation with the HKI, all of Kelsen’s works are edited in chronological order and in the language of their (first) publication in a historical-critical manner. This will make Kelsen's writings in the fields of legal theory and legal philosophy, constitutional law and international law, state and constitutional theory, political theory and social anthropology systematically accessible in their respective contexts of origin and, at the same time, reveal their significance for his entire oeuvre. The historically‑critical hybrid edition of Kelsen’s works opens new ground for legal scholarship.