SYMPOSIUM ON THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL LAW

7 | Introduction 1 1. Our Athens Symposium today aims at jointly reflecting on the Fu- ture of Global Law. The subject is elusive for more than one reasons. The very essence of Global Law as a new field of law is contested or is, at least, seen with great deal of suspicion. Now, trying to envision its Future is even more audacious. Fortunately, our reflection does not start ex nihilo . There is already important literature on Global Law with contributions of a very high intellectual caliber; among them indicatively: the work of Giddens 2 , Twinning 3 , G. Teubner 4 , Neil Walker 5 . One should not, of course, omit the important contributions of H. Muir Watt in association with D. Fernandez Arroyo, particularly in the field of Private International Law, having direct a collective theoretical approach in the field with distinguished international globalist scholars 6 . Most recently, a vol- 1. I would like to thank publicly Mr. Fedon Varessis for his assistance in editing the present paper. 2. The Consequences of Modernity , Stanford University Press, 1990. 3. Globalization and Legal Theory , CUP, 2000, idem , Understanding Law from a Global Perspective , CUP, 2009. 4. Constitutional Fragments: Societal Constitutionalism and Globalization , OUP,2012. Gunther Teubner is the leading authority of the theory of societal constitutionalism and of systems theory. 5. Intimations of Global Law, CUP,2015. 6. Muir Watt/Arroyo (eds), Private International Law and Global Governance , OUP, 2014. Fragments of Legal discourse on the Future of Global Law 1 Charalambos Pamboukis Professor, Faculty of Law, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens 2