What is legal authority and how does it relate to obligations? It is a kind of practical authority, that is, authority over action. From an influential point of view: «To claim authority is to claim the right to be obedient» (Wolff 1970, 5). There are, of course, authorities who do not make such a claim. The theoretical authorities, i.e. the experts, are not characterized by claims of obedience – they do not even need to claim the right to be believed. And there are weaker forms of practical authority. Giving someone permission to use your car is simply allowing them. But political authority, of which legal authority is a kind, is generally regarded as a right to govern, with a corresponding duty to obey. For this reason, the law claims the right to obedience wherever it imposes obligations.
And to obey does not only mean to obey the law; It should be guided by it. Max Weber says that it is «as if the governed had made the content of order the maxim of their behavior for their own good» (Weber 1963, 946). Or, as Robert Paul Wolff puts it more bluntly: «Obedience is not about doing what someone tells you. It is about doing what he tells you to do, because he tells you to do it» (Wolff 1970, 9). This does not mean that one obeys only if one considers the right of authority to have a say as an inviolable cause of action; However, it must be treated as a binding substantive justification. Whether there is an obligation to obey the law is a question of whether we should act from a legal point of view and obey the law as it claims to obey (Raz 1979, 233-49). The question of political obligation therefore revolves around the question of whether there are moral reasons for obeying the imperative requirements of an institutionalized, morally fallible and far-reaching authority. This obligation is intended to be comprehensive, since it includes all legal obligations and all those that the law requires to be respected. It is not supposed to bind no matter what, although it is supposed to be a real commitment among others.
Some philosophers also argue that it should bind people in particular to their own state, that is, to the states in which they reside or are citizens, and that an argument that could not demonstrate that one has stricter duties to obey one`s own country than an equally just foreigner would be erroneous to this extent (Simmons 1979, 31–35; Green, 1988, pp. 227-28). Finally, it is common ground that the obligation exists only if a minimum condition of justice is satisfied. An explicit commitment means that the duties, tasks or promises are expressly stated in the agreement or conditions. For example, Jacob`s new employment contract provides that he will stay with the company for two years and close at least 100 files per year. The parties negotiate various aspects of the agreement before it becomes binding and takes the form of a contract. Therefore, it is important to determine the exact moment of conclusion of the contract (i.e. the moment from which the contractual obligations take effect).
With the argument that the obligation of a private contract derives from domestic law existing at the time of the conclusion of the contract, another question arises, namely to which part of domestic law is referred? There is no doubt that the law that determines the validity of the treaty itself is part of that right. Part of this right is also the law that interprets the terms used in the contract or contains certain terms when others are used, such as constitutional provisions or laws determining what is «legal tender» for the payment of debts, or court decisions interpreting the phrase «for the value received» in a promissory note. And so on. In short, any law which, at the time of the conclusion of the contract, measures the rights and obligations of the parties in relation to each other, enters into its obligation. The consideration or mutual commitment of the parties forms the basis of a contract. These commitments define the scope of the rights and obligations of the Parties. The contractual clause provides that no state may «enact a law affecting the contractual obligation» and that a «law» in this context may be a law, a constitutional provision, a municipal ordinance2074 or an administrative provision having the force and effect of law.2076 But do judicial decisions fall within the scope of the clause? The abstract principle of separation of powers, at least until recently, prohibited the notion that the courts «make laws», and the word «passport» in the above article seemed to limit it to formal and recognized methods of exercising legislative function.