The Policy Science School of

Jurisprudence
 Historical Background
The policy science school of jurisprudence was
proposed by two Yale University professors
during the Second World War
 Historical Background
HAROLD LASSWELL
Renowned political scientist, instrumental inthe
creation of three interdisciplinary fields:
communications and public opinion, political
psychology, and policy sciences
 Historical Background
MYRES MCDOUGAL
Renowned authority on international law
 Definition of Terms
Policy
settled guidance, strategy or program adopted by
the legal order

Policy Science
discipline concerned with the formation,
clarification, and realization concerned with the
social values
Policy Science School of Jurisprudence
Policy science regards the view that there are
no moral principles that consciously precede
the law as dangerous, leading in fact to
ruinous and destructive conflicts
Policy Science School of Jurisprudence
It emphasized the integration of
interdisciplinary studies (social sciences) into
law and to the development of legal policy
grounded in the political and moral values of
Western liberal democracies freedom,
toleration, and equality and that applied
universally
Policy Science School of Jurisprudence
It underscores the need for the eventual
identification of basic social values in the legal
orders of all societies

The end result of the policy science approach

is the survival of humanity through the
universal identification and recognition of the
social values
Policy Science School of Jurisprudence
These social values are power, knowledge,
respect, income, safety and health, liberty,
and equality

These social values embrace the whole of our

present-day democratic preferences for a
peaceful world corresponding as they do to
actual desires of the people
Policy Science School of Jurisprudence
It considers these social values as instrumental
in the creation, clarification, and
implementation of other human desires
 Features of Policy Science School of
Jurisprudence
Reaction to apathy towards social values
The apathy towards social values, to some extent,
explains the tendency of governments to view the
rights of human beings as hindrances to the
exercise of governmental powers
 Features of Policy Science School of
Jurisprudence
Movement away from ontological
jurisprudence
Ontological concepts of the nature of law are of
no help in the reduction of national, regional and
global tensions. This juristic school believes that
both judicial legal realism and positivism are
incapable of solving the needs and requirements
of present day of systems of public order
 Features of Policy Science School of
Jurisprudence
Emphasis on human rights
Policy science approach is likewise a movement
away from slogans, doctrines and structures of
despotism (dictatorship) towards the symbols and
practices of a free society. This juristic school
emphasizes right to life, liberty, equality, property,
education, security, and the free exercise of the
mind
 Features of Policy Science School of
Jurisprudence
Movement for the universal recognition of
social values
Policy science seeks the universal identification of
the social values, their promotion, recognition and
enjoyment by all persons everywhere,
underscores the need for the eventual
identification of basic social values in the legal
orders of all societies