SYMPOSIUM ON THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL LAW

9 | Fragments of Legal discourse on the Future of Global Law | I believe our proceedings and works in this Symposium might be more precisely described as fragments of legal discourses —to paraphrase Roland Barthes famous book—on the Future of Global Law but I believe that it cannot be done differently. It is a puzzle, which needs to be construed gradually with a multiplicity of pieces corresponding to more than one theme. Athena—Goddess of wisdom and symbol of the University of Athens which hosts us— might inspire our Symposium which has been honored to be under the auspices of the President of the Hellenic Republic, Professor Prokopios Pavlopoulos who wish- es to contribute with a speech to be given at the end of today’s sessions. I. The environment of the contemporary era: Globalization in a nutshell 2. There are two axiomatic initial considerations: the first is that the law is a so- cietal phenomenon in the sense that it accomplishes several societal functions. Law is multifunctional. The function of regulation, adjudication 11 , and enforce- ment are the constituents of regulation stricto sensu . Therefore, the implications of Global law should be primarily analyzed through the prism of these functions. But in excess of the regulatory lato sensu function, law has an important unre- vealed pedagogical implication. It educates—or it should educate—citizens’ be- havior. Therefore, the cultural soft function of law is important even if that aspect has not been consistently revealed and emphasized. Law expresses, but it also cre- ates culture. That is particularly important in the fundamental struggle between integration and fragmentation. Law covers potentially everything and, therefore, a system, a synthesis in our era of “complexification” is very difficult, seemingly impossible at the level of global law. The second axiom is that we cannot think (ως ον) outside our own era 12 , our envi- ronment. The first step, therefore, in the discourse is to understand and describe the characteristics of our era while also projecting its fundamentals to the future. 3. The contemporary era is dominated by the mysterious yet eloquent notion of glo- balization 13 including both the communications and global web revolution and the 11. The idea of Justice is not the same concerning creation of regulation rules or adjudication decision, Pamboukis, Private International Law (in Greek), t. 1 General Part, Athens, NB, 2018, p. 109, (the justice of the rule and the justice of the decision are different because they have different functions). 12. As especially Hannah Arendt has pointed out. 13. There are multiple definitions of globalization. Indeed, despite the polysemy of the term it is eloquent in the sense that everybody can “feel” it as process. See Walker, Intimations of