Conflict of Norms and Conflict of Values in Law

Abstract

The conflict of norms is characterized by the existence of a rule that prescribes something while a second, also valid rule, prescribes the opposite. Thus, the presence of antinomic norms undermines the belief in a logical unity of the legal order. For this reason, the existence of antinomies in law is widely discussed, as well as the cause and the nature of these conflicts. Often imputed to a failure in the norm producing process, these conflicts of norms are treated as a pathological phenomenon that we should try to avoid at the source or to interpret away by logical means. However, these preventive or curative tools do not address and solve the antinomies which are located at the deeper level of the values hiding behind the legal rules and supporting them. This article discusses the need for a classification of different kinds of normative conflicts and, thus, the need for appropriate strategies to solve them.