Kelsen and Morgenthau in America: Betwixt Legal Philosophy and International Politics

Hans Kelsen and his former mentee at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Hans J. Morgenthau, emigrated to the United States in 1937 and 1940, respectively. Both were unable to secure stable academic positions in the law departments of American universities, and they would go on to become professors of political science at Berkeley (Kelsen) and contemporary history at Chicago (Morgenthau). This article traces the ways in which the two legal scholars sought to make sense of their new intellectual environment: by stepping out of American law debates, and by placing the emphasis on the international.