ABSTRACT
Widely regarded as the most important legal theorist of the twentieth century, Hans Kelsen is best known for his formulation of the "pure theory of law"—within which the study of international law was his special field of work. It is the legal systems of state and international law, and the relations between the two, that most concern Kelsen, and to which he devotes approximately two-thirds of General Theory of Law and State. It is doubtless the case that in General Theory of Law and State Kelsen anticipated, if at times with only a shadowy understanding, the directions that international law has taken during the past halfcentury or so. It is the legal systems of state and international law, and the relations between the two, that most concern Kelsen, and to which he devotes approximately two-thirds of General Theory of Law and State.
