Grundnorm di hans kelsen biography

Hans Kelsen (October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian-American jurist, legal philosopher, teacher, and writer on international law, who formulated the “pure theory” of law.

Because of his family's Jewish origins, he was obliged to disrupt his career several times and move from country to country, but this enabled him to influence and associate with legal scholars from all over the world.

As a professor of law in Vienna, he published several works on public law. In 1919, Kelsen was asked to write the constitution, which the Austrian Republic subsequently adopted in 1920, and he served on the Austrian Constitutional Court until he lost his seat for political reasons.

Grundnorm di hans kelsen biography

He then went to Cologne, where he taught and wrote about international law until the Nazi occupation forced his family to move to Switzerland. In 1940, they immigrated to the United States, where he taught until 1952, and served as legal adviser to the United Nations War Crimes Commission.

His The Law of