The Alexy-Poscher Debate on Legal Principles

This collective work provides a chronological and up-to-date reconstruction of the three-round legal debate between Robert Alexy and Ralf Poscher. The debate represents the German development of an enduring jurisprudential controversy over distinguishing legal principles from legal rules, classically addressed by HLA Hart and Ronald Dworkin. Alexy’s principles theory—highly influential in Latin American jurisdictions—argued initially that legal principles are optimisation requirements and, more recently, that they are defined by an ‘ideal ought’. Poscher’s critique questions the soundness of Alexy’s theory and the necessity of its ontological and epistemological commitments. As legal principles are related directly to constitutional rights, the Alexy-Poscher debate has significant implications for constitutional adjudication. Canons of constitutional construction and limitations on judicial power, for example, both depend on these disputed conceptions of legal principles. Yet despite the centrality and pervasiveness of this topic, German contributions to the theoretical and practical impact of legal principles remain overlooked by English-speaking scholars. Aimed at legal researchers looking for clear and rigorous jurisprudential discussions, and advanced law students with interdisciplinary interests in jurisprudence, constitutional law, and comparative law, this collection fills an important scholarly gap. Whether or not conversant in the debate on legal rules and principles, readers will find this book to be a timely and distinctive introduction to leading developments in German legal thinking.