Abstract
There are few legal concepts which polarize so many different and, sometimes, antagonist connotations than that of ‘Sanction’, a notion which, at the same time lies at the heart of the determination of the nature of an order as legal or not. In effect, many writers consider sanctions to be the very criterion for the identification of a legal (compared to a non-legal) order (see Kelsen [1953] 13–17; see also Laquièze, at 1381) or, at least, as the condition for its effectiveness. In this Kelsenian (or Kelsen-inspired) conception, the legal order is characterized...