The volume is dedicated to the concept of sanctions and to the reassessment of its interrelation with the concept of law. It does not seem that long ago that âlawâ and âsanctionsâ were thought of as necessarily interrelated. âEvery Law is a commandâ, we read in Austinâs âProvince of Jurisprudence Determinedâ; a particular command, however, in âthat the party to whom it is directed is liable to evil from the other, in case he [does not] complyâ. And â[t]he evil which will probably be incurred in case a command be disobeyed [â¦] is frequently called a sanctionâ. H. L. A. Hartâs critique of Austinâs âcommand theory of lawâ successfully drove a wedge into the interrelation of âlaw and âsanctionsâ; so successful, in fact, that it caused some scholars to part with the idea of âforceâ underlying the concept of law altogether and others to emphatically protest what they perceived as a rash move to discard one of the core elements of law. The debate still is on.
