Justice and procedure

Rose MacGowan spoke not only to denounce the sexual violence against women in the Hollywood system, but to explain why women have not said anything so far, why victims smiled when they were scorned, why they expressed a satisfaction when they were used as things, and that for so many years: they were afraid and ashamed. She explained that at first they had at ceremonies organized by Hollywood to the glory of Hollywood wearing black dresses. She explained that it was not enough and that it took the explosion of this kind of rage that finally the truth comes out. Indeed, weak signals – such as mourning one's own dignity – are not enough when what is involved in overthrowing is what has been built in the last thirty years, from the United States and whose main victims are women: what must be named expressly "The Road of Violence".. - Women are the cobblestones. We are the consumers. We are walking on this Road of Violence, we pay considerable sums to the industrialists who built this Road of Violence and develop it every day more by new highways, by drawing from the body of women, this inexhaustible wealth. We do it happily because the human beings we walk on, instead of shouting their pain and protesting against what we are doing to them, smile, affirm their satisfaction, seem to be asking for more. That must stop. And that can stop. Because if we stop using this Road of Violence, then the industry of human, which is motivated and guided only by the magnitude of the profitability, will stop. If we, active or potential consumers, do not do it, then women will be released themselves by violence, exhausted that we step on them. But if of ourselves we stopped to take this Route? Because it does not take the only form of sexual violence in the film industry. Women are used and offered for the satisfaction of all our other desires. No limit, because they are so happy. This construction of the markets by new offers passes by the erasure of our own conscience. It is above all against our blindness that we must fight. - Indeed, the solution is not that victims wear black dresses, which paradoxically refers to what would be even more "discretion" on their part, even "distinction", a solution that erases them even better. It is certainly not that the victims are fading away, they must not fade any more than they must apologize, they must not "disappear" anymore. However, in order for us as consumers to borrow this "Road of Violence" and pay for the industries that build it, we must not even be aware of the fact that we consume human beings, an act of consumption we are rather reluctant. By ethics or because the Law reminds that the human being is a person and not a thing. To provoke our act of consumption, the woman is thus masked. She is masked by a smile and a "consent". The argument is often returned to the faces of victims, perpetrators or their lawyers reminding that they have good "consented" to get into the bedroom, they "knew very well" that awaited them, they had a " interest "to do so (eg a role in a film). And to show pictures where we see the victims with the perpetrator of violence, both smiling, which would be the proof that they were "agree" or even "friends" and that we should not get involved. The moral order invading private life, that would be the enemy, the State not having to slip under the veil of women. This argument is used systematically when it comes to organizing the transfer of women and children on a large scale. The surrogacy industry encourages us to pay agencies, clinics, doctors and lawyers to get a baby. The images and testimonies of "happy GPA" invite us to participate in the showdown with the States for the easy obtaining of a link of filiation between this child of which we wanted the birth in the world and us. Since for the moment the Law protects women by the prohibition of the GPA, any debate is good to take, any evolution of the Law going towards a "liberalization" of the practice. Industry leads us on the "good road". What becomes of the mother? She disappeared. She is nothing. We are told that she is a "third party" vis-à-vis a relationship of filiation that is derived from the desire to parent. She ? She is only the mechanical instrument from which the child comes. Why worry about her? In the photos that are poured on the networks and in the debates, the women smile. In the recordings, they say: "I am happy, my only happiness is to make the happiness of others". Thus, as consumers of women and children, we can walk on this Road. We know that mothers are poor, that they are paid. But what if they say they are happy? This is inevitably true, since they say it. While we know that they are the mothers, the promotion of this industrial practice by the intermediaries most often established as a non-profit association in London or the United States underlines that these women have "freely consented" and that they have an "interest" because by the money received they can take care of their family. Everybody is happy. Fear, shame and guilt are never mentioned. And so, thanks to our blindness, built by the industry and commerce of the human, and through which they thrive, the Road of Violence is unfolding around the world as never before previously. -   No, the recognition of the practices is not the solution, it is on the contrary the cement that the industry awaits to consolidate the Road of the Violence, this infamous Road paved on the smiles of the victims, so happy to prostitute themselves and to make the "magnificent gifts" of surrogacy), paved with "consents" to fade ("I agree to be nothing, and it gives me pleasure, because my only pleasure is your pleasure" ), paved on altruism and privacy ("do not interfere with anything, do not ban anything, never mention the defense of the human being, let us stay with the administrative difficulties to be regulated, what is the use of State"). You can take a position one way or the other. But we must name the realities. Either we admit to living in a world where everything is yielding and acquiring. And we say Yes to the sale of women. Which are an abundant but valuable raw material. Either we do not admit it. By ethics, which posits that a human being can not have status of thing. And the Law must not only maintain the prohibition of surrogacy, but must achieve the international effectiveness of this prohibition. That it is difficult, yes but this is another question. Do not offer businesses Law, and not only Law but also Ethics, to pave the Road to Violence, still adding to the strength they have to do it.   -    

This working paper serves as a support for an article published in French in the Recueil Dalloz. In Lisbon, in the Web Summit of November 2017, a machine covered with a skin-like material and a sound-producing device gave a speech in public at this conference on digital. For example, a French article tells the event by this title : Le premier robot citoyen donne sa propre conférence au web summit  (The first citizen robot gives his own conference to the web summit). Some time later, reports show the same robot walking and taking more than 60 facial expressions, the text laudatif that accompanies the images designating the automaton by the article: she.¹It is true that in 1966, the BBC already presented a sort of robot being the "ideal" servant and designating it by the article "she".. The machine, which falls legally within the category of "things", is thus presented as a person. Let's look elsewhere. Women, who are human beings, sign contracts by which they agree to give birth to children, with whom they claim they have no connection, that they are not mothers, that they will hand them over immediately at the exit of their belly to those who desired their coming, this desire for parenthood creating by hitself the true and only link between the child and his "parents of intent". The mother-carrier is often openly referred to as "oven". The woman, who falls legally within the category of the "person", is thus presented as a thing. The two sensational phenomena are of the same nature. They call two questions: 1.Why? The answer is: money. Because both are the result of the new construction of two fabulous markets by supply. 2.How? The answer is: by the destruction of the distinction between the person and things. The distinction between person and things is not natural, it is legal. It is the base of the western legal systems, their summa divisio. If this distinction disappears, and for money to flow, it must actually disappear, then the weak human being will become the thing of the strong one. Read below the developments.

► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "La mondialisation du point de vue du Droit" (Globalisation from a legal perspective), in Association Henri Capitant,  La mondialisation, t. LXVI/2016, Berlin, Bruylant, coll. "Travaux de l'Association Henri Capitant",   2017, pp. 11-30 - 📝read the  article (in French)  - 📗read the general presentation of the book, La mondialisation, in which this contribution for the book's synthesis and conclusion is published - 🚧lire le document de travail bilingue sur la base duquel cet article a été élaboré, doté de développements supplémentaires, de références techniques et de liens hypertextes - ► English summary of this article: Globalisation is a confusing phenomenon for lawyers. The first thing to do is to take the measure of it. Once this has been done, it is essential to allow oneself to think something about it, or even to force oneself to think something about it. For example, on the novelty or otherwise of the phenomenon, which then enables us to assess what is being put in place. If Law can and must "pretend" to defend every human being, a universal ambition that is intended to confront the global field of forces, then the next – but secondary – question is: quid facere? Nothing? Less than nothing? Or regulate? Or do we still affirm that the Law fulfills its primary function, which is to protect the weak, even in the power struggle that is Globalisation? - 📝read the summary and conclusive report of the symposium organised by the Association Henri Capitant, as part of the Journées internationales Allemande about La Mondialisation in Berlin, the 27 May 2016. - 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on LinkedIn 🌐follow Marie-Anne Frison-Roche on Instagram 🌐subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law

This working document served as a basis for a lecture given in French at the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques  (French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences) on September 25, 2017, in the cycle of conferences conducted under the presidency of Michel Pébereau,  Quelles réformes ? (What reforms?) Consult the presentation (in French) of the conference cycle (2017). It served as the basis for the publication of an article published  in French in 2018 in the book directed by Michel Pébereau Réformes et transformations (Reforms and transformations).

Reférence complète : Frison-Roche, M.-A., Les fonctions de la Compliance. Un choix politique à faire ("The functions of Compliance. A political choice to do"), in  Borga, N. et Roda, J.-Ch. (dir.), La compliance : nouveaux enjeux pour les entreprises, nouveaux rôles pour les juristes ? ("Compliance: new challenges for companies, new roles for lawyers?"), Centre du Droit de l'entreprise Louis Josserand, Université Lyon IIII Jean Moulin, France, Lyon, 2 juin 2017. Read the program (in French) Summary of the conference : Compliance mechanisms are being constituted in "Compliance Law", new branch of Economic Law. Its functions are determined by the goals. But the goals are "monumental", since it is nothing less than the end of corruption, trading in influence, arms trafficking, international terrorism, trafficking in human beings, selling of human organs, the effective safeguard of environmental protection, safeguarding the planet, access to culture for all, preservation of civilization, the effectiveness of human rights … The goals of a company are not a priori of this order, even if every firm understands that it is clever to appear amiable. By comparing the two types of goals, a difference of nature is measured. By the Compliance Law, companies are therefore invited to "get out of themselves. Consequently, the functions that shape the contours of Compliance Law transform those who are the "subjects of law", the enterprises: these are the subjects, insofar as they are agents of legality. But this can not be the case for all companies. If the effect of Compliance were to be generalized to all companies, this would be catastrophic and would make no sense. However, who firmly and precisely drew the circle of "legal subjects eligible to be the legality agent" of Compliance? With the considerable costs and responsibilities that go with it? If it has not been the Legislator, it will have to be the Judge. Because the judge is guardian of the spirit of Law and guardian of legal orders. Especially if it is a global legal order. - Moreover, companies are not only passive subjects of Compliance Law – which would be the case of a misunderstood Compliance Law – but are also active subjects of Compliance Law. Indeed, these "monumental goals" which draw the functions of the Compliance are exactly the same as those of the Corporate Social Responsibility. Thus, if the Compliance is conceived of only as an immense and empty submission of all undertakings to total regulation, the result will be an opposition between the regulatory power and the will of undertakings, a concrete opposition between public authorities and companies. If, on the other hand, we conceive Compliance Law as that by which "crucial enterprises" like the Regulators are moving towards the realization of "monumental goals, then Compliance Law crystallizes a" Trust Pact""between the two, Which goes beyond the borders and becomes a means of regulating globalization. This second conception is the future of European Law. -   See the slides (in French). Read the working paper on which the conference is based (working paper in English)