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AbstractLegal positivism and lesbian separatism provide very different, yet comparable, approaches to the issue of separation. Legal positivism practices separation as a tool of dominance, while lesbian separatism is based upon the need for identity formation and resistance to dominance. By elaborating upon the justifications advanced for lesbian separatism, this article critiques the separateness defended by legal positivists, and highlights the effects of power and context upon the significance of separation. Thus separatism as a political objective is not rejected or supported, except insofar as it consolidates oppressive practices. However, a critique of the idea that separation is necessarily territorial and pure is also developped, and an alternative vision of separation based upon the work of María Lugones is proposed. It is suggested that a non-oppressive concept of law can only maintain its identity if an alternative understanding of its separateness evolves.

Legal positivism is one of the fundamental theories of jurisprudence studied in law and related fields around the world. This volume addresses how legal positivism is perceived and makes the case for why it is relevant for contemporary legal theory. The Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism offers thirty-three chapters from leading scholars that provide a comprehensive commentary on the fundamental ideas of legal positivism, its history and major theorists, its connection to normativity and values, its current development and influence, as well as on the criticisms moved against it.

AT THE NUREMBERG TRIALS THE DEFENSE COUNSEL RAISED THREE PRINCIPAL CRIMINAL DEFENSES: ACT OF STATE, SUPERIOR ORDERS, AND EX-POST-FACTO LAW.ALL OF THESE WERE SUBSEQUENTLY REJECTD BY BOTH THE PROSECUTION AND THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL.

"Although the subject-matter of jurisprudence (sometimes called 'legal theory') is not understood in precisely the same way everywhere, everyone agrees that the question of the nature of law falls within the purview of jurisprudence. The central question is, 'What is law?', or 'What is the nature of law?', and it is usually here that one encounters legal positivism and its main challenger, natural law theory, for the first time. The central question in the debate between legal positivists and natural law thinkers - the perennial finalists in the world cup of legal theory - is often said to concern the relation between law and (true) morality: Whereas natural law thinkers maintain that law is necessarily moral, that there is a necessary connection between law and morality, legal positivists hold instead that the relation between law and morality is contingent, that law is sometimes moral, sometimes immoral, and argue that the question of whether we have an obligation to obey the law can be answered only after we have considered the content and the administration of the law in the relevant jurisdiction"--

What is law? The usual answer is that the law is a system of norms. But this answer gives us at best half of the story. The law is a way of relating to one another. We do not do this as lovers or friends and not as people who are interested in obtaining guidance from moral insight. In a legal context, we are cast as 'character masks' (Marx), for example, as 'buyer' and 'seller' or 'landlord' and 'tenant'. We expect to have our claims respected simply because the law has given us rights. We do not want to give any other reason for our behavior than the fact that we have a legal right. Backing rights up with coercive threats indicates that we are willing to accept legal obligations unwillingly. This book offers a conceptual reconstruction of the legal relation on the basis of a critique of legal positivism