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VINX, Lars. Hans Kelsen' s Pure Theory of Law: Legality and Legitimacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 23Op. Cloth, $130.00- Legal philosophers in the English speaking world are likely to be familiar with Hans Kelsen for the influence of his legal theory on the school of modern positivism represented by such figures as Joseph Raz and H. L. A. Hart, while students of modern political thought may recall him as the object of Carl Schmitt's polemic against liberal constitutionalism in Political Theology. In this work, Lars Vinx aims to show the integral connection between Kelsen's legal and political philosophy, demonstrating how Kelsen's theory of law serves to ground his doctrine of the state and defense of constitutional liberalism. The pure theory of law is undergirded by two major principles; the first is the identity thesis that the state is not the source of the legal order but is identical with it. This principle safeguards constitutionalism because, were the state seen as the source of the legal order, it would then have "the power to exempt itself from the observance of the positive law whenever it sees fit." The second principle is that the law is a "pure" or autonomous science operating under its own axioms which do not depend for validity on any other discourse such as sociology or ethics. Thus, theories of natural law are rejected by Kelsen because they tie the validity of the positive law to a higher level moral theory. On Vinx's account the autonomy of law from the moral theory of justice is also a necessary part of the defense of constitutionalism; otherwise, where the law fails to conform to the dictates of the moral theory, "the positive legal order one feels morally entitled to disrespect lacks the quality of genuine law."