4 A. Austin's theory (the monistic, legal view)

1. Every state has a determinate sovereign — an identifiable person or body (the electorate, a king, a parliament). 2. The sovereign receives habitual obedience from the bulk of society and renders obedience to no one. 3. Law = the sovereign's command backed by sanction; hence the sovereign is legally illimitable — it cannot be legally bound (any "binding" law is merely its own command about itself). 4. Sovereignty is indivisible and unified: one determinate superior. Criticism of Austin (the exam core): 1. Constitutional states: the UK Parliament is bound by conventions and now human-rights instruments; the US Congress is limited by a justiciable constitution — who is Austin's sovereign there? The electorate? It never meets, cannot legislate. 2. Federalism: in the USA, India or Nepal, power is divided between federation, provinces and local levels — habitual obedience is rendered to several law-makers simultaneously (Nepal: Schedules 5–9 of the Constitution!). Divided powers, yet the state exists. 3. International law: states obey it daily — Austin must call it "not law properly so called", which beggars the modern reality. 4. Continuity of law: law survives the sovereign's death (Kelsen's critique — validity descends from the Grundnorm, not from a person). 5. Democratic dignity: reducing law to the command of the powerful hides its origin in the people's consent.