In this paper, the Author will submit to critical analysis Hans Kelsen’s Grundnorm as a penetrating explanation of legal orders at the constitutional level. The Author will suggest that Hans Kelsen himself, in the late period of his work, considered that the very concept of a basic norm is self-refuting. To be sure, if one relies on the relation between Kelsen’s approach and Vaihiniger’s theory, the basic norm could be understood as a fiction. Fictions, in turn, can be understood as a vehicle of thought. However, a fundamental question remains: Does the basic norm still offer an insightful theoretical tool for grasping the highly constitutionalized legal order? Would this fiction hold, if there are good reasons to belief that Kelsen himself decided to revise his position? Does the Kelsenian, positive account still hold in the age of global constitutionalism?
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