Austin claims that law is legally valid when it is issued by someone (i.e. a sovereign) who is habitually obeyed, with substantial sanctions if its subjects do not comply. this (“command theory”). Sanctions are key to his theory of validity, because without them, orders would be nothing more than demands. This poses an antiseptic separation between law and morality (Kellogg 2007, p.-36). Although Austin's theory is simple and easy to follow, it is not convincing in that it appears to be an overly simplistic and inadequate explanation of law. His theory focused exclusively on law in its vertical form and imposing duty, habitual obedience and largely lacked the concept of rules (Schauer, 2009). Hart noted that habits are inadequate because they cannot confer rights and authority. Furthermore, a brief observation of existing laws, besides criminal law, reveals a wide range of laws that do not fall under the command form. An example of this is found in contract law, which grants individuals the right to independently facilitate business transactions rather than requiring them to behave in a certain way. If we were to subscribe to Austin's command theory, contract law would necessarily have to be characterized as telling contracting parties what they must do to enter into a contract. However, this is convoluted and glosses over the important role of law not only in regulating human conduct, but also in creating powers for the citizen to engage in conceptually antecedent conduct (Schauer, 2009). Furthermore, Austin's theory of legal validity fails to take into account the "internal" and normative aspect of legal obligations whereby people obey existing laws even without fear of sanction or threat of force ( Hart, 1994, pp. 79-84). Such a command theory is my...... middle of paper ...... worm, Holmes' theory is not instructive on how to go about making these "prophecies" of right without any reference to guidelines or explicit guidelines, despite its proposal to refer to rather arbitrary factors such as moral and political climate. As such, Holmes's theory loses its convincing character as it does not provide certainty as to how a valid law can be identified. In conclusion, the theories discussed in this article offer various ways of determining what makes a law valid. These theories are convincing on different levels and are therefore not perfectly conclusive on this point. However, an analysis of these theories allowed me to appreciate the nuances between each theory, as well as appreciate the fact that legal theory is much more tolerant of conflicting theories than other areas of legal study..