Food for thoughts

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📝General Procedural Law, prototype of the Compliance Obligation, in 🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (dir.), 📘Compliance Obligation

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, 2026, to be published

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📕In parallel, a book in French L'Obligation de compliance, is published in the collection "Régulations & Compliance" co-published by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Lefebvre-Dalloz.

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📚This book is inserted in this series created by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche for developing Compliance Law.

read the presentations of the other books of this Compliance Series:

further books:

🕴️M.A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Evidential System, 2027

🕴️M.A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance and Contract, 2027

previous books:

🕴️M.A. Frison-Roche (ed), 📘Compliance Juridictionnalisation, 2023

🕴️M.A. Frison-Roche (ed), 📘Compliance Monumental Goals, 2022

🕴️M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), 📘Compliance Tools, 2021

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► go to the general presentation of this 📚Series Compliance & Regulation, conceived, founded et managed by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, co-published par the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant.

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🧮the book follows the cycle of colloquia organised by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and its Universities partners.

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► general presentation of the book: Compliance is sometimes presented as something that cannot be avoided, which is tantamount to seeing it as the legal obligation par excellence, Criminal Law being its most appropriate mode of expression. However, this is not so evident. Moreover, it is becoming difficult to find a unity to the set of compliance tools, encompassing what refers to a moral representation of the world, or even to the cultures specific to each company, Compliance Law only having to produce incentives or translate this ethical movement. The obligation of compliance is therefore difficult to define.

This difficulty to define affecting the obligation of compliance reflects the uncertainty that still affects Compliance Law in which this obligation develops. Indeed, if we were to limit this branch of law to the obligation to "be conform" with the applicable regulations, the obligation would then be located more in these "regulations", the classical branches of Law which are Contract Law and Tort Law organising "Obligations" paradoxically remaining distant from it. In practice, however, it is on the one hand Liability actions that give life to legal requirements, while companies make themselves responsible through commitments, often unilateral, while contracts multiply, the articulation between legal requirements and corporate and contractual organisations ultimately creating a new way of "governing" not only companies but also what is external to them, so that the Monumental Goals, that Compliance Law substantially aims at, are achieved.

The various Compliance Tools illustrate this spectrum of the Compliance Obligation which varies in its intensity and takes many forms, either as an extension of the classic legal instruments, as in the field of information, or in a more novel way through specific instruments, such as whistleblowing or vigilance. The contract, in that it is by nature an Ex-Ante instrument and not very constrained by borders, can then appear as a natural instrument in the compliance system, as is the Judge who is the guarantor of the proper execution of Contract and Tort laws. The relationship between companies, stakeholders and political authorities is thus renewed.

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🏗️general construction of the book

The book opens with a substantial Introduction, putting the different sort of obligations of compliance in legal categories for showing that companies must build structures of compliance (obligation of result) and act to contribute with states and stakeholders to reach Monumental Goals (obligation of means).

The first part is devoted to the definition of the Compliance Obligation.

The second part presents the articulation of Compliance obligation with the other branchs of Law, because the specific obligation is built by Compliance Law, as new substantial branch of Law but also by many other branchs of Law.

The third part develops the pratical means established to obtained the Compliance Obligation to be effective, efficace and efficient.

The fourth part takes the Obligation of Vigilance as an illustration of all these considerations and the discussion about the future of this sparehead fo the Compliance Obligation .

The fifth part refers to the place and the role of the judges, natural characters for any obligation.

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► Summary of this article: The first part of this study assesses the evolving relationship between Arbitration Law and Compliance Law, which depends on the very definition of the Compliance Obligation (I). Indeed, these relations have been negative for as long as Compliance has been seen solely in terms of "conformity", i.e. obeying the rules or being punished. These relationships are undergoing a metamorphosis, because the Compliance Obligation refers to a positive and dynamic definition, anchored in the Monumental Goals that companies anchor in the contracts that structure their value chains.

Based on this development, the second part of the study aims to establish the techniques of Arbitration and the office of the arbitrator to increase the systemic efficiency of the Compliance Obligation, thereby strengthening the attractiveness of the Place (II). First and foremost, it is a question of culture: the culture of Compliance must permeate the world of Arbitration, and vice versa. To achieve this, it is advisable to take advantage of the fact that in Compliance Law the distinction between Public and Private Law is less significant, while the concern for the long term of contractually forged structural relationships is essential.

To encourage such a movement to deploy the Compliance Obligation, promoting the strengthening of a Sustainable Arbitration Place (III), the first tool is the contract. Since contracts structure value chains and enable companies to fulfill their legal Compliance Obligation but also to add their own will to it, stipulations or offers relating to Arbitration should be included in them. In addition, the adoption of non-binding texts can set out a guiding principle to ensure that concern for the Monumental Goals is appropriate in order the Compliance Obligation to be taken into account by Arbitrators.

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May 29, 2026

Publications

🌐Subscribe to the Newsletter MAFR Regulation, Compliance, Law

🚧read the bilingual Working Paper on the basis this article has been written, with more developments, technical references and hyperlinks

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "General Procedural Law, prototype of the Compliance Obligation", in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), Compliance Obligation, Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Bruylant, "Compliance & Regulation" Serie, 2026, forthcoming.

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📝read the article

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📘read a general presentation of the book, Compliance Obligation, in which this article is published

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► Summary of this article: At first glance, General Procedural Law seems to be the area the least concerned by the Compliance Obligation, because if the person is obliged by it, mainly large companies, it is precisely, thanks to this Ex Ante, in order to never to have to deal with proceedings, these path that leads to the Judge, that Ex Post figure that in return for the weight of the compliance obligation they have been promised they will never see: any prospect of proceedings would be seeming to signify the very failure of the Compliance Obligation (I).

But not only are the legal rules attached to the Procedure necessary because the Judge is involved, and increasingly so, in compliance mechanisms, but they are also rules of General Procedural Law and not a juxtaposition of civil procedure, criminal procedure, administrative procedure, etc., because the Compliance Obligation itself is not confined either to civil procedure or to criminal procedure, to administrative procedure, etc., which in practice gives primacy to what brings them all together: General Procedural Law (II).

In addition to what might be called the "negative" presence of General Procedural Law, there is also a positive reason, because General Procedural Law is the prototype for "Systemic Compliance Litigation", and in particular for the most advanced aspect of this, namely the duty of vigilance (III). In particular, it governs the actions that can be brought before the Courts (IV), and the principles around which proceedings are conducted, with an increased opposition between the adversarial principle, which marries the Compliance Obligation, since both reflect the principle of Information, and the rights of the defence, which do not necessarily serve them, a clash that will pose a procedural difficulty in principle (V).

Finally, and this "prototype" status is even more justified, because Compliance Law has given companies jurisdiction over the way in which they implement their legal Compliance Obligations, it is by respecting and relying on the principles of General Procedural Law that this must be done, in particular through not only sanctions but also internal investigations (VI).

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en savoir +

Dec. 10, 2025

Conferences

🎤Saisir les principes du Droit de la Compliance à travers l'actualité (Understanding the principles of compliance law through current current legal cases and events)

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L’avis consultatif de la Cour internationale de justice du 23 juillet 2025 sur les obligations des États en matière de changement climatique

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► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, Saisir les principes du Droit de la Compliance à travers l'actualité (Understanding the principles of compliance law through current current legal cases and events), Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 University Law Faculty, 10 December 2025.

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► Methodological presentation of this 4-hour MasterClass : It is difficult to teach a branch of law that is still being developed, to find a way to open its doors, because if by explaining its principles ex abrupto, the risk exists of remaining at the door, even though the aim is to open it. This door is all the more blocked by the accumulation of multiple regulatory corpus, which are now perceived as being linked to Compliance Law: GDPR, Sapin 2, Vigilance, Nis2, Dora, FCPA, etc.; These are highly technical and complicated, and tend to be studied in silos, with little connection between them and little articulation with the traditional branches of Law. Therefore, the principles that form the backbone of Compliance Law as an autonomous branch of Law are all the less apparent, even though they would make these "compliance blocks" more intelligible and manageable. However, setting out these principles, which shed light not only on the current positive law but also on how it will evolve, seems "theoretical".

In order to open the door to this new branch of Law, which already occupies a significant place in practice and is set to expand, so that it can be handled by lawyers who understand its spirit and is not entirely dominated by those from other disciplines who will master its tools (risk mapping, assessment, internal investigation, etc.), most often through algorithms and platforms (compliance by design), it is relevant to start with a few cases, a few decisions, a few texts, and a few comments, to gauge what they reveal.

Because the principles are already there. They are gradually emerging. The challenge is that they often emerge quickly, in a manner that is sufficiently consistent with other branches of Law, and that the legal aspect takes precedence. That is what is at stake today.

Each hour is devoted to a different case, based on a document of a different legal genre.

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🌐read a post on LinkedIn (in French)

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⛏️Find out more :

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance Law, 2016

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Monumental Goals, the beating heart of Compliance Law, 2023

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝In Compliance Law, the legal consequences for Entreprises of their commitments and undertakings, 2025

🕴🏻M.-A. Frison-Roche, 📝Compliance Law and Systemic Litigation, 2025

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Nov. 26, 2025

Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Référence complète : Y. Kerbrat, "L’avis consultatif de la Cour internationale de justice du 23 juillet 2025 sur les obligations des États en matière de changement climatique", Clunet, 2025, n°4,

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🦉Cet article est accessible en texte intégral pour les personnes inscrites aux enseignements de la Professeure Marie-Anne Frison-Roche.

Nov. 25, 2025

Thesaurus : Doctrine

Introduction, in Justices manifestes

► Référence complète : É. Schmit et A. Peter, "Introduction", in Justices manifestes , Clio - Thémis, n°29, 2025.

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📝lire l'article

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📗Consulter l'ensemble de la publication

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► Résumé de l'article : Les auteurs présentent le sujet même de ce dossier : montrer la place de l'écrit dans les procédures comme mode spécifique de rituels qui eux-aussi rendent la justice "manifeste". Présentation par les auteurs : "

"Ce dossier se situe au croisement de deux manières d’aborder et d’écrire l’histoire de la justice : celle, d’une part, qui s’intéresse aux manifestations rituelles du processus judiciaire ; et celle, d’autre part, qui traite des enjeux et des pouvoirs de l’écrit dans l’action de la justice. En repartant de la métaphore théâtrale, c’est-à-dire en envisageant la scène judiciaire comme cadre spatio-temporel du déploiement du rituel, il s’agit d’en étudier précisément les modalités d’enregistrement, pour mieux comprendre comment l’écrit participe du caractère manifeste des justices médiévales et modernes – dans leur diversité. À l’intersection entre rituel et écrit judiciaires, il y a bien sûr la procédure, entendue à la fois comme la succession des étapes conduisant à l’exécution d’une décision de justice, et comme l’ensemble des règles qui encadrent chacune de ces étapes. Faire l’histoire des modalités d’enregistrement du rituel judiciaire implique dès lors d’expliciter à la fois les rapports entre rituel et procédure, et entre procédure et écrit. Les contributions qui suivent témoignent de l’intérêt, pour les historiennes et historiens de la justice, d’articuler ces deux approches, chacune ayant fait l’objet d’une historiographie féconde.".

C'est la quatrième partie de l'article qui est plus particulièrement consacré au rôle des "écrits judiciaires", évoquant le gouvernement par l'écrit, le réseau des écritures, les écritures judiciaires grises, etc.

Le contenu des 5 articles composant le dossier est présenté ainsi : "Voilà quelques-unes des questions auxquelles les cinq articles de ce dossier apportent de précieux éléments de réponse, à partir de contextes documentaires, temporels, géographiques et juridictionnels bien différents. À partir d’une série de 70 arrêts criminels rendus au parlement de Paris au xive siècle, Isabelle D’Artagnan analyse la façon dont l’enregistrement façonne la jurisprudence de la cour quant à l’usage de deux peines infamantes, l’amende honorable et le pilori. En étudiant au plus près les modalités de l’enregistrement, elle montre combien celui-ci est en lui-même performatif : il constitue non seulement une première satisfaction pour les parties, mais oriente aussi l’action future des juges. Rudi Beaulant interroge quant à lui le rôle des écritures judiciaires comme outil de gouvernement urbain, dans un contexte de partage du pouvoir judiciaire entre ville et prince à Dijon à la fin du Moyen Âge. La multiplication et la répartition des informations enregistrées montrent que les écritures judiciaires constituent à la fois un instrument d’administration et de légitimation pour les officiers urbains, tout autant qu’elles participent de la construction de la mémoire judiciaire de la ville. Dominique Adrien s’intéresse, dans la Bavière de la fin du xve siècle, à une charte rédigée à la demande des parties qui s’opposent devant le tribunal urbain de Kempten, et dont il donne l’édition et la traduction. À partir de cette charte qui permet, dans un contexte juridictionnel concurrentiel, de consolider les droits de la plaignante mais aussi la décision du tribunal, l’auteur analyse les modalités spécifiques de l’enregistrement du procès, et notamment la place importante accordée aux témoignages oraux. Dans sa contribution, Rémi Demoen piste dans les comptes municipaux d’Amboise, Chinon et Loches au second xvie siècle les traces indirectes du rituel spécifique du jugement des comptes, dans le contexte documentaire particulièrement lacunaire de la Chambre des comptes. Il apparaît que l’écrit, davantage qu’une simple trace du rituel, joue un rôle central dans le processus même de vérification des comptes. Enfin, Mathias Boussemart consacre son article aux bandeaux gravés qui ornementent un grand nombre d’impressions judiciaires au xviiie siècle. S’il s’intéresse aux scènes judiciaires que ces bandeaux représentent, il montre surtout comment ces bandeaux, qui participent de l’ultime phase du rituel judiciaire – l’impression sur papier de décisions jugées remarquables – contribuent à la diffusion, à grande échelle, de petites scénettes judiciaires. Toutes attentives aux mécanismes d’enregistrement à l’œuvre, ces contributions affinent, dans la diversité des cas étudiés, notre compréhension des rituels judiciaires.".

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Nov. 19, 2025

Publications

📝L'invention du "droit à l'enfant". Les conséquences de la pratique contractuelle comme source d'engendrement de l'enfant (The invention of the "right to a child". The consequences of the contractual practice as a source of childbearing), in 📗Nouvelles filiations (New Filiations)

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, « L'invention du "droit à l'enfant". Les conséquences de la pratique contractuelle comme source d'engendrement de l'enfant (The invention of the "right to a child". The consequences of the contractual practice as a source of childbearing)", in Special Issue Nouvelles filiations (New Filiations), AJ Famille, Lefebvre Dalloz, Nov. 2025, pp.568-571.

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📗read the table of content of the special issue in which this article is published (in French)

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📝read this article (in French)

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🚧Read the underlying bilingual working document, which includes additional technical developments, technical references and hyperlinks.

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► English summary of this article: Every legal system is built on concepts that form its pillars. Filiation is one such concept. A cas-law solution, presented as pragmatic and casuistic, can overturn this concept. Whether one agrees with it or not, it must first be acknowledged and assessed.

Through a series of rulings on surrogacy, notably a ruling by its First Civil Chamber granting exequatur to a judgment recognising the filiation established by surrogacy between a child and persons with no biological link to the child and without recourse to adoption, the French Cour de Cassation has introduced the possibility of creating parentage by contract. This not only changes the concept of filiation but also changes the very structure of the French legal system, which is based on the distinction between persons and things. One may agree or disagree with this, but it must be said.

Since the judge gives force to such a contract establishing filiation, with the foreign judge simply recognising it and the French judge ensuring only that the contract is balanced, the prospect opens up of a society in which individuals will be able to contractually create institutions at their disposal, within the private normative space of the contract, with the State's only function being to give effect to their right to legal recognition of their unique "project". Parentage is only a first example.

Thus constructed on what was "inconceivable", i.e. a "right to a child", thanks to the contractual power to which the State should lend its force a posteriori, the judge makes parentage resulting .the judge technically declares a parentage arising from a contract to be "admissible". Is opening a society in institutions were contractually governed.

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Nov. 13, 2025

Interviews

💬"Ordonner la Compliance : pourquoi le faire et comment le faire ? (Organising Compliance: why do it and how to do it?)"

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📝Contraintes et liberté du juge constitutionnel dans l'exercice de son travail d'interprétation, in 📗Les méthodes d'interprétation

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► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, ""Ordonner la Compliance : pourquoi le faire et comment le faire ? (Organising Compliance: why do it and how to do it?)", interview Focus on... conducted for Dalloz Actu Étudiants, 13 November 2025

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► read the interview : 💬 Read the interview (in French)

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🌐read the interview presentation on LinkedIn (in French)

🌐read the interview presentation through the MAFR Newsletter Law, Compliance, Regulation, (in English)

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► presentation of the interview by Dalloz Actu-Étudiants : Compliance can be defined as a new branch of law that mobilises major economic players and their stakeholders to ensure that the large systems in which we live do not collapse, but remain solid and sustainable. Sanctions, contracts, ethical principles, court decisions and corporate cultures all converge to achieve this. The ambition is great, some contest it, many want to escape it. It is still difficult to define compliance, which seems to be going in all directions. Who? What? Why? How?

These are all questions addressed by Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, professor of law and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC), together with the contributors to the collective works in the Régulations & Compliance series under her scientific direction. Compliance (JoRC), together with the contributors to the collective works in the "Regulations & Compliance" collection under her scientific direction, sheds light on with her imaginative power combined with her legal precision.

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Q.Why do the fundamental objectives of compliance unify all legal compliance techniques?

Summary of MAFR's response: because all these regulatory frameworks, which large companies are required to enforce effectively and which appear disparate, creating as many specific requirements as there are regulatory compliance blocks, find their unity when we consider the following reality: whatever the body of regulations in question (Sapin 2, Vigilance, Nis2, Dora, IAA, etc.), the aim is always to identify and prevent systemic risks so that these systems do not collapse.

Q. How can we define the obligation of compliance?

Summary of MAFR response: the company concerned is therefore obliged to put in place "compliance structures", such as mapping, plans, alert structures and programmes (obligation of result), but of course, and this is the key point, to achieve this goal, namely to ensure that the system in question (banking, financial, climate, digital, algorithmic, etc.) does not collapse. This is an obligation of means. This is the exact, simple definition that unifies all the regulations of the Compliance Obligation for which subject companies are responsible.

Q. What conflicts arise around the source of compliance standards and their implementation?

Summary of MAFR's response: It must remain a matter of law. However, many argue that because it is only a matter of "compliance" and "ticking all the boxes", algorithms (which do not think or know anything) will do this, eliminating the need for lawyers and the law. This must be avoided. Furthermore, given the immense ambition of safeguarding systems, political and public authorities, businesses and stakeholders must join forces. They must not fight to bring each other down.

Q. What are the complexities of compliance law?

Summary of MAFR's response: I would not say "complexity", because although the regulations are complicated, compliance law is fairly simple and unified around its monumental goals of safeguarding systems, ensuring their future sustainability and protecting the people involved in them. However, it is a new branch of law that is still poorly understood and therefore sometimes poorly mastered. It therefore needs to be organised.

Q. What is your proposal for ordering it?

Summary of MAFR's response: Teaching more about compliance law will facilitate its organisation. The courts, to which all regulations converge through litigation, will participate in this organisation, which is necessary to ensure that regulations do not remain in silos and do not contradict each other when they have the same purpose, which constitutes their legal normativity. This new branch of law must also be articulated with all other branches of law. This is notably what the recently published book, L'obligation de compliance (The Obligation of Compliance), does.

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Nov. 12, 2025

Thesaurus : Doctrine

► Référence complète : B. Mathieu, « Contraintes et liberté du juge constitutionnel dans l'exercice de son travail d'interprétation », in Cahiers de droit constitutionnel, Les méthodes d'interprétation nov. 2025.

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► Résumé de l'article : S'appuyant sur les décisions du Conseil constitutionnel, l'auteur montre que celui-ci ne se contraint que peu lorsqu'il s'agit de contrôler les normes constitutionnelles, notamment parce qu'il choisit les contours du bloc de constitutionnalité, mais qu'il se limite davantage lorsqu'il contrôle les normes législatives, respectant davantage la séparation des pouvoirs (puisqu'il est lui-même une juridiction).

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📝Lire l'article

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Nov. 4, 2025

Thesaurus : Doctrine

📗Le pouvoir administratif des personnes privées

► Référence complète : M. Cirotteau, Le pouvoir administratif des personnes privées, préf. Th. Perroud, Éd. Panthéon-Assas, coll. "Nouvelle recherche", 2025, 768 p.

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► Résumé de l'ouvrage (fait par l'éditeur) : "Le pouvoir administratif des personnes privées n’est pas une « monstruosité » du droit administratif, mais une notion originale qui désigne la capacité des personnes morales de droit privé à prendre des actes juridiques.

Ce pouvoir se traduit par la détention de fonctions de police administrative spéciale, par des personnes privées, qui s’exerce sur les opérateurs économiques. Par opposition avec la théorie normativiste qui associe l’acte juridique à la volonté, plusieurs exemples sélectionnés dans le droit positif permettent de penser ce phénomène en s’appuyant sur la théorie du pouvoir.

L’auteure applique un régime, qui s’inspire des principes irriguant le droit administratif, au pouvoir administratif des personnes privées, et questionne son encadrement par les méthodes du contentieux administratif. Elle propose finalement d’introduire une logique concurrentielle dans les secteurs où ce pouvoir fait irruption et perturbe le fonctionnement des marchés. Ce faisant, Marie Cirotteau nous invite à repenser les conditions qui ont construit le savoir juridique, et propose des réponses inédites face aux défis posés par l’accroissement du pouvoir de certaines grandes entreprises aujourd’hui.".

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Oct. 30, 2025

Publications

📝Droit de la compliance et Contentieux systémique (Compliance Law and Systemic Litigation)

►Full Reference: M.A. Frison-Roche, "Droit de la compliance et Contentieux systémique" (Compliance Law and Systemic Litigation), in Chroniques Droit de la Compliance (Compliance Law Chronicles), Recueil Dalloz, 6 November 2025

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🚧read the bilingual Working Paper on which this article is based, with additional developments, technical references and hyperlinks

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►read the English presentation of the previous chronicles:

"Compliance and conformity: Distinguish them in order to articulate them", 2024
"Regulations, Compliance, Contracts, and Judges: places and alliances", 2023
"Contract of compliance, stipulations fo compliance", 2022
"The Adventure of the Compliance", 2020
"Compliance and Legal Personality", 2019
"TLegal Theory of Risk Mapping", 2019

►read the English presentation of the whole chroniques

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►English summary of this article: Legal systems have changed, and Compliance Law, in its uniqueness, reflects this change and plays a powerful role in it. Through new sets of compliance rules, particularly at European level, in areas such as data protection (GDPR), anti-money laundering (AMLA), climate balance protection (CS3D) and banking and financial system sustainability (Banking Union), techniques (always the same) have been developed and imposed on large companies, which must implement them: alerts, mapping, assessment, sanctions, etc. These new regulatory frameworks only make sense in relation to their ‘Monumental Goals’: to detect systemic risks Ex Ante and prevent crises so that the systems in question do not collapse, but ‘sustain". All the legal instruments in the corpus are normatively rooted in these Monumental Goals, which are the core that unifies Compliance Law (I).

Judges are the guardians (II) of this new and highly ambiguous normative framework, which relies on the practical ability of companies to do just that. They ensure that the technical provisions are applied teleologically in each of these compliance blocks, and that the regulatory frameworks are mutually supportive, for it is always the same systemic goal that all compliance regulations serve: to ensure that systems (banking, financial, climate, digital, energy, etc.) do not collapse, that they are sustainable, and that present and future human beings are not crushed by them but, on the contrary, benefit from them. This unity is still little perceived, as regulations pulverize this profound unity of compliance law in the myriad of changing provisions. Entrusting the "regulatory mass" to algorithms increases this pulverization, making the whole increasingly incomprehensible and therefore impossible to handle. Acknowledging the judge's rightful place, i.e. at the heart of the matter, will enable us to master this new branch of law. But it's not the judge's job alone to restore clarity to a whole covered in the dust of his own technicality.

The systemic object of Compliance Law is transferred to Litigation. Indeed, the Litigation that emerges from the new Compliance Law is also fundamentally new, by transitivity. Indeed, the aim of Compliance Law is to make systems sustainable (or sustainable, or resilient, the vocabulary varies). The result is litigation which is itself "systemic litigation" (III), most often initiated by an organization against a systemic operator. The place and role of each are transformed (IV).

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Updated: Oct. 26, 2025 (Initial publication: Sept. 4, 2024)

Publications

🚧The invention of the 'right to a child'. The consequences of contractual practice as a source of childbearing

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📝De l'obligation de compliance à l'obligation de vigilance : le rôle du juge

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► Full reference : M.-A. Frison-Roche, The invention of the 'right to a child'. The consequences of contractual practice as a source of filiation, working document, Sept. 2024 - Oct. 2025.

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🎤This working document forms the basis of a presentation entitled, "Le "droit à l'enfant" est-il concevable, pourquoi et avec quelles conséquences" (Is the 'right to a child' conceivable, why and with what consequences", in Les nouvelles filiations. Diifférentes perspectives (New parentage. Different perspectives." held at the Paris Court of Appeal on 12 September 2024.

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📝Revised, this working document forms the basis of the article published in the dossier "Les nouvelles filiations. Regards croisés" (New parentage. Different perspectives), Act. jur. Dalloz Droit de la famille (in French).

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► Summary of this working document : Every legal system is built on concepts that form its pillars. Filiation is one such concept. A cas-law solution, presented as pragmatic and casuistic, can overturn this concept. Whether one agrees with it or not, it must first be acknowledged and assessed. Through a series of rulings on surrogacy, notably a ruling by its First Civil Chamber granting exequatur to a judgment recognising the filiation established by surrogacy between a child and persons with no biological link to the child and without recourse to adoption, the French Cour de Cassation has introduced the possibility of creating parentage by contract. This not only changes the concept of filiation but also changes the very structure of the French legal system, which is based on the distinction between persons and things. One may agree or disagree with this, but it must be said. Since the judge gives force to such a contract establishing filiation, with the foreign judge simply recognising it and the French judge ensuring only that the contract is balanced, the prospect opens up of a society in which individuals will be able to contractually create institutions at their disposal, within the private normative space of the contract, with the State's only function being to give effect to their right to legal recognition of their unique "project". Parentage is only a first example. Thus constructed on what was "inconceivable", i.e. a "right to a child", thanks to the contractual power to which the State should lend its force a posteriori, the judge makes parentage resulting from a contract technically "admissible" and opens up a contractually governed society.

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🔓read the working document below⤵️

Oct. 16, 2025

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