“Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.”Thomas Hobbes · Leviathan · 1651 · Partea I, capitolul 13
Law without the power to enforce it is only advice, not a rule.
For Hobbes, justice is not a floating reality but a convention that works only if someone enforces it. If nobody can execute the rules, breaking them costs nothing, so the rules do not really exist. The mechanism is enforcement: law without force is mere advice. Example: in stateless territories, agreements between groups hold only as long as the balance of power sustains them.
Hobbes draws a useful distinction: a rule without sanction is not law, but advice. Advice can be followed or ignored, with no consequences. A rule becomes law only when breaking it costs something. That is why a promise made on one's word alone is not yet a real contract: if the other party can break it with no penalty, you have no agreement, only a hope. Think of a neighbour who promises to pay half of a shared fence. If nobody can compel him, his promise is worth exactly as much as he finds convenient. The next question: who has the right to enforce the sanction, and why do we obey them?
Why it matters It explains why weak institutions produce chaos and why reforms fail when new laws lack enforcement mechanisms.