Academic

Sator on Legal Validity

By Lawrence Solum

Giovanni Sartor (European University Institute Law Department) has posted Legality Policies and Theories of Legality: From 'Bananas' to Radbruch's Formula on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

I shall argue that issue of legal validity or legality (I will use these two terms as synonymous) can be addressed by taking an inferential stand, namely, by considering under what preconditions (antecedents) the legality of a norm can be inferred, and what postconditions (consequences) can be inferred from a norm's legality. Consequently, I shall consider what form theory of legality can take, where by a theory of legality I mean a set of conditionals (legality policies) which, together with true facts, circumscribes the set of legal norms. In particular, I shall consider to what extent such conditionals need to be positivistic.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on December 23, 2008 (boomark / email).