At the center of this classic collection of essays, which has been supplemented in this new edition with three additional treatises on questions of human dignity, are central issues of state order as they can be derived from the existing, historically conditioned relationship between freedom and law, or freedom and state. Böckenförde demonstrates that law is not only a necessary condition for freedom but also presupposes the state as a unit of power and decision-making, as well as the holder of the monopoly on legitimate use of force. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde is an emeritus professor of public law, constitutional and legal history, and legal philosophy at the University of Freiburg and served as a judge on the Federal Constitutional Court from 1983 to 1996.