The Sources of Law

Abstract

In explaining the sources of law a distinction must be made between the sources of its validity and the sources of its content. Usually the phrase “sources of law” refers to its content, and in this sense statute, ordinance, custom, treaty, the science and practice of jurisprudence, etc., are named as the sources of law. In this field lies the service of the Historical School. It concerned itself chiefly with the question how the content of law is to be discovered, and in opposition to the School of Natural Law it showed that there is more than one source from which law can derive its content. If we were to take up the origin of law from this point of view, we might have to amplify the list of sources now that unwritten law (or more generally non-sovereign law) has been rediscovered in every field; we should also have to investigate the relative importance of each. Indeed the science of law has turned its attention to this problem.