Idea of Decoupling of Austinian Concept of State and law

AUTHOR: NIKITA SHARMA, STUDENT, HIMACHAL PRADESH NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, INDIA

---

Abstract

The beginning of jurisprudential studies began with Austin and Bentham who conceived the idea of command which was necessarily to be given by a commander. The idea of law to them was intricately linked with sovereign. To them law existed and dies with sovereign or state and so the idea of state and law could not be isolated from each other. Austinian theories were worshiped and it was obvious that this idea of intertwined nature of state and law was also perceived by Jurists as ultimate reality. We see changes however coming, especially when Austianian theory became a disease. It must be noted that with the evolution of Historical School however, jurists came to recognise law as beyond the concept of state and state recognition. Complete segregation was however failed to be brought out here also. With the contemporary movement of Legal Pluralism, a new concrete idea of law is aspired to be defined. It is yet to evolve an agreed upon definition. In the context of State and Law and their relationship, great strides were made at attempting their segregation in understanding and a perspicacious argument has been set up by pluralists. However, there is a general consensus that the concept of law is beyond that of only the state. The present study is aimed at analysing these two contrasting and strong propositions of law.

Keywords: Jurisprudence, Austin’s Theory, Decoupling, State.

---

Download Full Paper

Research Paper

.pdf

Download PDF • 352KB