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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- List of Main Works by H.L. A. Hart -- 1. Introduction to the Second Edition -- 2. Hart: Moral Critic and Analytical Jurist -- 3. Hart's Conception of Law -- 4. Social Rules -- 5. Morality, Positive and Critical -- 6. Obligation, Duty, Wrongdoing -- 7. Powers and Power-Conferring Rules -- 8. Rights -- 9. The Legal Order I: Primary Elements of Law -- 10. The Legal Order II: Secondary Rules -- 11. Judicial Discretion and the Judicial Role -- 12. Sanctions, Punishments, Justice -- 13. Law, Morality, and Positivism -- 14. Epilogue -- Notes -- Index

In this short but authoritative book, the nature and purpose of the European Constitution are explained by someone involved in its preparation. The author discusses how it was drafted, and tackles some much debated questions: whether it promises any enhancement of democracy in the EU, whether it implies that the EU is becoming a superstate, and whether it will strengthen the principle of subsidiarity and the protection of human rights.

Legal theory has been much occupied with understanding legal systems and analysing the concept of legal system. This has usually been done on the tacit or explicit assumption that legal systems and states are co-terminous. But since the Rome Treaty there has grown up in Europe a `new legal order', neither national law nor international law, and under its sway older conceptions of state sovereignty have been rendered obsolete. At the same time, it has been doubted whether the `European Union' that has grown out of the original `European Communities' has a satisfactory constitution or any constitution at all. What kind of legal and political entity is this `Union' and how does it relate juridically and politically to its member states? Further, the activity of construing or constructing `legal system' and legal knowledge becomes visibly problematic in this context. These essays wrestle with the above problems

A controversial collection of interrelated papers which investigate and argue about issues of concern for contemporary lawyers and politicians. The papers combine a scholarly regard for leading thinkers of the past and present, and a stringently argued view about questions of political obligation.

In the first place the concept of nationalism, which has been traditionally joined to the ambiguous idea of a free country and free citizens, is analysed; a dubious problematic relationship given the distance between State and Society. This difficulty justifies nationalism having been considered a significant but regrettable political phenomenon. In an attempt to resolve this difficulty the author clarifies and critisizes the liberal idea of a free country, where liberty is considered an individual value preliminary to society. Individuals are products of Society, and, therefore, individual autonomy is not the only way to structure to defend liberty. If the nation is a constituent element of individual identity, cannot be ignored when discussing the subject of liberty. So, national self-determination is an esential part of liberty as autonomy. Given that nations are not chimeras, a resonable nationalism, that flees from the exclusivity and absolutism of the past, is morally and philosophically acceptable. Finally it is important to note that there are signs in the European Communinty that we are learning to go beyond the sovereign State without dissolving the nation. ; Este artículo tiene cuatro secciones principales. En la primera planteo algunas cuestiones sobre la ambigüedad de la idea de país libre, y muestro cómo algunas consideraciones que se siguen de ella han conducido a un desencanto del nacionalismo, más como un tema filosófico que como un fenómeno histórico lamentable. En la segunda, asumo la postura quizás antitética de que, respecto a la descolonización y a la perestroika, la mayoría de la gente parece tener una opinión muy radical en favor de la autodeterminación nacional, sin realmente relacionarla con aquella concepción que rechaza la posibilidad de que el nacionalismo ocupe un lugar dentro de una filosofía política normativa. En la tercera, vuelvo a las ideas de libertad con la esperanza de despejar la confusión y, quizás, de trascender incluso la contradicción entre las secciones primera y segunda. Finalmente, afronto directamente la cuestión de si el nacionalismo es filosóficamente creíble, y acabo con la recomendación de lo que considero una teoría liberal y moderada del nacionalismo.