Lecture Seven— The Conventionality Thesis

This chapter defends the conventionality thesis — the claim that legal authority is made possible by a specific set of conventional social practice. It begins by considering the widely misunderstood relationship between the rule of recognition and the social practice of officials. It then argues that contrary to the views of many positivists, the rule of recognition purports to be, and can be, a duty-imposing rule. The chapter concludes by considering the objection that to explain the existence conditions of legal authority in terms of a rule of recognition whose existence condition depends on the behaviour of ‘officials’ is, in the end, to explain law in terms of law.