Book Reviews: Principles of International Law. By HANS KELSEN. (New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc. 1952. Pp. xvii, 462. $5.00.)

Published date01 December 1952
Date01 December 1952
DOI10.1177/106591295200500407
Subject MatterArticles
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BOOK REVIEWS
Principles of International Law. By HANS KELSEN. (New York: Rinehart
&
Company, Inc. 1952. Pp. xvii, 462. $5.00.)
Every student of international law and every competent student of
international relations should without fail read this discussion by Professor
Kelsen on the theory and philosophy of international law. Although the
reader will find in these pages a good deal of the legal theory and philos-
ophy which Kelsen has incorporated in other volumes this is probably the
most compendious and the most compact presentation of the subject mat-
ter available.
The volume treats of the nature of international law (concept of law,
delicts and sanctions) its validity, its functions, the creation and application
of the law, and its relation to national law. Scattered through this small
volume are references to territory, nationality, recognition, treaties, war,
and neutrality, but, as the author himself indicates in his Preface, the book
does not pretend to be a summary of the rules or even of the principles of
international law. It is essentially a discussion of the theory of the law in
its social or sociological context, replete with the familiar Kelsen doctrines
which are restated clearly and strongly.
The book forms one of a limited group of choice monographs written
in recent years by Brierly, Corbett, Dickinson, Jessup, Lauterpacht, and
others on the theory, history, and future of international law. In these
works is presented what may be called a progressive social juristic treat-
ment of international relations. On the other side we have what may be
called the reactionary Bolshevik - not necessarily or simply Communist,
or Russian, or Marxist -
attitude and technique as set forth in the studies
of Laetes, Rossi, Selznik and others.
This volume contains much that is drawn from the Charter of the
United Nations and the experience of that organization. Professor Kelsen
has given us in The Law of the United Nations the most searching study
of the United...

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