Reine Rechtslehre (“Pure Theory of Law,” 1967) is the title of the major work published in 1934 by Hans Kelsen (1881–1973), a jurist of Jewish origin from Prague. Kelsen’s comprehensive œuvre is comprised primarily of theoretical legal writings on fundamental questions of international law, the state, and democracy. In Reine Rechtslehre Kelsen presented a synthesis of his neo-Kantian and universalistically oriented general conception of law, the experi…