Closing Remarks

• Author: Saúl Litvinoff
• Position: Boyd Professor of Law and Oliver P. Stockwell Professor of Law
• Pages: 1219-1221

Boyd Professor of Law and Oliver P. Stockwell Professor of Law, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University

My colleague Olivier asked me to say some closing words, a task I gladly accepted since, as I told him, closing words are simple and short, all one has to say is, "Very pleased to meet you, I hope we will meet again soon, good bye," but my dear colleague told me that such a succinct message would not be enough. So, with your indulgence, and by way of closing remarks, I will attempt to summarize what I learned from the erudite presentations of the members of the symposium and the interesting discussions that ensued following each one.

The title that was given to this function is "Law Making in a Global World," which brings to the mind the concept, or alleged phenomenon, of globalization. If it really exists, it was asserted, it is frequently understood as the increasing expansion of capitalism, primarily the American one, that in today's world, like a weed that if left to grow without control, very soon will cover the whole yard, which many people are warranted in regarding as a disquieting event. That confusion should be avoided, however, as a gross limitation of the concept of a global world, that is, a world where there is room and resources for everybody, not only for the privileged ones. The main purpose of laws to be made for such a world should be imbued with a sense of justice that can be shared by all politically organized communities, that is, of course, for everybody. I asked myself whether that is possible. Justice is actually a feeling, it is rather the heart and not the mind that ascertains what is fair. Whether collective feelings exist is a question since long ago addressed by philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists, and so far the answer does not seem to be positive.

Nevertheless, there are fragmentary notions of social justice, economic justice, and other kinds or forms of justice, but economy is not society, though capitalism is like a hurricane that blows with irresistible force in its endeavor to buy the world.

There was then very interesting information concerning certain African communities with a culture of their own, very different, quite clearly, from the Western world. In those communities that Western anthropologists feel inclined to call primitive, there is not apparent distinction between person and property, that is, property is not attached to, but rather, is an integral part of the...