Hans Kelsen Werke

Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) was said to be the most consistent, innovative and influential legal positivist.  Born in Prague, he grew up in Vienna, where he worked as a university professor and a judge of the constitutional court before leaving Nazi Germany in 1993 for Switzerland and then emigrating to the USA.  His fame and his reputation as the "leading jurist of the time" are based primarily on his ground-breaking works on legal theory, which created a furor under the name "Pure Theory of Law." However he also made a lasting and innovative contribution  as a teacher of constitutional law and international law, a political theorist and a legal sociologist.

The "Hans Kelsen Werke" (HKW) make Kelsen's complete and copious works, produced in more than six decades of indefatigable writing which revolutionzed his discipline, accessible according to subject, genre and length. In addition to the almost 18,000 pages already published, the HKW contains previously unpublished works by Hans Kelsen.  The writings are in chronological order according to when they were first published or when they were written.