A Collège de France - CNED coproduction
Abstract
By associating a method - comparative studies - with a process in progress - the internationalization of law -, this Chair looks to the future, however uncertain that future may be. Admittedly, current events tragically underline the absence of a genuine global legal order: the United Nations Charter's system of collective security has shown its fragility, and the law has been unable to disarm force. On the other hand, force cannot prevent the unprecedented extension of law, to the point where no state can durably free itself from it. Today, it is no longer possible to ignore the superimposition of standards - national, regional and global - or the overabundance of institutions and judges - national and international - with extended jurisdiction. These new realities are moving the law towards interactive, complex and highly unstable systems. Rather than a defeat for the law, it is perhaps a mutation in the very conception of the legal order.
