The article is dedicated to the memory of a prominent national scientist in the field of general theory of law – Doctor of Legal Sciences, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Professor of Lviv and Kyiv State Universities – Petro Nedbaylo. It describes his significant contribution to the development of scientific knowledge of the rule of law, legal norms, their application and interpretation, the subject of the general theory of the state and law, its place and role in the system of legal sciences, as well as the development of the national general theory of human rights and practice of their international protection. One of the main lines of the creative works of P. Nedbaylo was the system of methodology of legal sciences and foremost of the theory of state and law. The basic theme that can be traced through all his publication is the idea of Jurisprudence’s separate subject. This subject consists of regularities of emergence, structure and development of law. I.e. P. Nedbaylo understood the Legal science neither as a «deductive» determinant of historical materialism (soviet social and philosophical paradigm), nor as an inductive generalisator of knowledge of other Legal sciences. The most prominent defense of this views was embodied in his «Introduction to the General Theory of State and Law» (Kyiv, 1971).

Keywords: Prof P . Nedbaylo, Theory of State and Law, Legal science, law, norm of law, application of law, legal interpretation, standards of human rights