John Austin’s utilitarian answer was that law is “instructions, backed by risk of sanctions, from a sovereign, to whom people have a behavior of obedience”. Natural lawyers on the other side, similar to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, argue that law reflects essentially moral and unchangeable legal guidelines of nature. The idea of “pure law” emerged in ancient Greek philosophy concurrently and in connection with the notion of justice, and re-entered the mainstream of Western tradition via the writings of Thomas Aquinas, notably his Treatise on Law. The Journal online features the newest news and views from the Scottish legal occupation. California Western …