A searchable, exhaustive database of Benoît Frydman's publications: books, chapters, articles, reports and forewords, with summaries, keywords and ready-to-use citations (BibTeX, RIS). https://benoitfrydman.com/en/feed.xml 2026-08-09T22:48:04Z Benoît Frydman fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/magazine-press-article/2026-the-rule-of-law-is-a-struggle/ 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Rule of Law is a Struggle] In this interview, legal philosopher Benoit Frydman discusses the contemporary threats to the rule of law in Belgium and the essential role of lawyers in its defense. He identifies three critical dangers: the government's systematic non-compliance with judicial decisions and international injunctions, the State's problematic approach to algorithmic governance without regard for constitutional protections and citizens' rights, and the lack of sufficient political will among leaders to defend the principles of the rule of law against right-wing extremism, political Islamism, and rising antisemitism. Benoit Frydman emphasizes that the rule of law requires constant vigilance and a commitment to the democratic values of the Enlightenment from legal professionals and civil society.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2026-concluding-remarks/ 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Concluding Remarks] Benoit Frydman offers a concluding reflection on European digital regulation through the lens of global law. He analyzes the co-regulation model deployed by the European Union (DMA, DSA), which delegates to major platforms, designated as 'gatekeepers', the tasks of policing markets and content under supervision. While documenting the effectiveness of this normative strategy, he highlights the growing tensions with American technological actors and the inherent instability of global regulation in the absence of a centralized sovereign authority.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2025-my-october-7/ 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

[My October 7] Benoit Frydman recounts his personal and institutional response to the October 7 attack and the subsequent surge of antisemitism across European capitals, academia, politics, and judicial systems. Drawing on ULB's historical mission to combat religious extremism and protect human dignity, he documents how these institutions have failed to effectively counter antisemitic manifestations and calls for invoking Article 17 of the European Convention on Human Rights to exclude those who abuse democratic rights to destroy democracy itself.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/magazine-press-article/2025-benoit-frydman-the-choice-of-rima-hassan-must-under-no-circ/ 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Benoit Frydman: 'The choice of Rima Hassan must under no circumstances be validated by the Faculty of Law, nor by the ULB'] In this press article, Benoit Frydman opposes naming the 2025 graduating class of the ULB Faculty of Law after French Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan, arguing that this would constitute a submission to anti-Semitic political Islamism. Frydman cites Hassan's support for the Assad regime in Syria and the Algerian regime, as well as the investigations against her for the glorification of terrorism and threats of violence, notably against Imam Hassen Chalghoumi. He invokes the historical commitment of the ULB against anti-Semitism and calls on the Rector and the Academic Council to review the decision should the Faculty Council approve it.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2025-convincing-in-the-age-of-ai/ 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Convincing in the Age of AI] Benoit Frydman examines the relationship between artificial intelligence and legal argumentation by tracing the historical debate between formalist approaches (the Leibnizian dream of substituting calculation for discussion) and the conception of the Brussels School, which grounds law in argumentation and rhetoric. He analyzes how various AI systems—expert systems, neural networks, and generative AI—impact judicial reasoning, arguing that probabilistic arguments derived from AI analysis can enrich legal argumentation without replacing the adversarial process. Finally, the work addresses the pedagogical challenge of training law students in the potential and risks of AI.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/magazine-press-article/2025-defending-between-philosophy-duty-and-combat/ 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Defending: Between Philosophy, Duty, and Combat] In this interview for the Bulletin du Barreau (March 2025), Benoit Frydman examines the lawyer's role and the notion of defense from a philosophical perspective. He traces philosophy's historical hostility toward lawyers from Platonic critique of sophists through Leibniz's dream of formal legal logic and Beccaria's judicial syllogism. Frydman emphasizes the post-World War II rehabilitation of contradictory debate through procedural philosophy and Perelman's argumentation theory, which recognize argumentative discussion as the sole legitimate means in a democratic rule of law. He then warns against contemporary dangers of artificial intelligence applied to justice, which revives the old dream of algorithmic legal calculation, and against abdication of critical judgment to technical expertise. The lawyer must remain guardian of a conception of truth and justice founded on argumentation, contradiction, and democratic deliberation, facing threats from both populism and technocratic dogmatism.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/journal-article/2025-interpretation-and-digitalisation/ 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Interpretation and Digitalisation] Benoit Frydman analyses the historical evolution of models of legal interpretation since the French Revolution, showing an alternation between hermeneutics and formalisation, with the emergence since the 1990s of the constitutional model centred on human rights and the technique of balancing interests. The author warns, however, that the irruption of artificial intelligence into administrative and judicial decision-making marks a new shift towards a calculative logic that threatens the constitutional principles of the rule of law and calls for a thorough understanding of the underlying mathematical and computational techniques, as well as a renewed engagement with the study of formal legal logic.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2025-the-compliance-obligation-in-global-law/ 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Compliance Obligation in Global Law] Alice Briegleb and Benoit Frydman examine compliance obligations in global law through the classical prism of the law of obligations. The authors analyze how compliance systems operate a transition from ex post (dispute resolution) to ex ante (risk management), encompassing technical standards and corporate social responsibility codes beyond classical legal sources. They demonstrate the transformation of moral obligations into binding civil obligations, and then examine how European instruments and judicial rulings require regulated actors to regulate the behavior of others within their sphere of influence.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/journal-article/2025-teaching-methods-for-global-law/ 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Teaching Methods for Global Law] Benoit Frydman examines the pedagogical approaches to teaching global law by exploring the tensions between theoretical and practical, systematic and casuistic, as well as disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. The author justifies the introduction of this curriculum by the need to train legal professionals in the realities of normativity within the context of digital globalization. He advocates for an empirical and inductive method, starting from concrete cases to progressively build a critical understanding of global regulatory mechanisms.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/preface-foreword/2025-preface-to-the-ecological-transformation-of-economic-law/ 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Preface to 'The Ecological Transformation of Economic Law'] This preface by Benoit Frydman outlines the strategy for a substantial reform of economic law aimed at integrating the ecological transition into the very core of business law and corporate governance, breaking with the formal Hayekian-inspired neoliberal approach that has dominated since the 1980s. Drawing on the reformist tradition of the School of Nice (Gérard Farjat, Gilles Martin), Benoit Frydman proposes concrete reforms: corporate duty of vigilance, mandatory sustainability reporting (CSRD), and the transformation of corporate governance towards increased stakeholder involvement.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2024-the-brussels-school/ 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Brussels School] Benoit Frydman presents the Brussels School as a school of thought founded in the social sciences at the end of the nineteenth century, characterised by an interdisciplinary, pragmatic and anti-formalist approach to law and norms. He divides its development into three phases: a sociological phase (social reform, social defence, labour law), an argumentative phase (post-1945, centred on Chaim Perelman and his new rhetoric applied to law), and a global phase (from the 1990s onwards, devoted to the study of innovative normative instruments in global governance). The author emphasises that the School conceives of law not as an articulated system of rules but as the progressive and reasonable construction of solutions emerging from adversarial debate in a context of irreducible pluralism.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2024-ecole-de-bruxelles/ 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

Ecole de Bruxelles

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book/2024-artificial-intelligence-confronting-the-rule-of-law/ 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Artificial Intelligence Confronting the Rule of Law] This introductory article by the collective formed by Charly Derave, Benoit Frydman, and Nathan Genicot examines artificial intelligence and algorithmic governance as both a major threat and an opportunity for the rule of law. The work traces the philosophical and historical roots of this project back to the Platonic government by reason, then traverses post-war cybernetics before distinguishing two technically distinct approaches: symbolic AI based on explicit rules, and connectionist AI through supervised learning operating as a 'black box'. Beyond dystopian fears (robot judges, Orwellian social credit), the authors map out concrete administrative applications—fraud detection algorithms in Belgium, facial recognition, recidivism prediction—before outlining the overall plan of the book covering seven critical areas.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2024-artificial-intelligence-confronting-the-rule-of-law-2/ 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Artificial Intelligence Confronting the Rule of Law] This introductory chapter explores the tensions between artificial intelligence and the rule of law, presenting both the deep anxieties it arouses—the fantasy of the 'robot judge', 'social credit' systems imposing mass surveillance, the fear of a takeover by superintelligent machines—and the promises of algorithmic governance. The authors trace the history of this project from Plato to the 1956 Dartmouth conference, set out the definition of artificial intelligence proposed by Marvin Minsky, and discuss the resurgence of 'symbolic AI' made possible by the big data revolution at the beginning of the 21st century. The chapter thus sets the framework for a systematic analysis of the opportunities and risks that AI poses to the rule of law.

pt https://benoitfrydman.com/en/journal-article/2023-the-legal-order-a-historically-situated-concept/ 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Legal Order: A Historically Situated Concept] Benoit Frydman argues that the concept of 'legal order' is historically contingent, rather than essential to law itself, originating from modern natural law theory and geometric rationality (Descartes, Pascal, Domat). While this macro-legal perspective effectively organizes complex legal systems, it imposes a vision that obscures other important dimensions, including conflicts, tensions, and evolutionary factors. Particularly in contexts of legal globalization, where multiple normativities coexist without hierarchical unity, the paradigm of order becomes problematic; Benoit Frydman advocates for flexibility in the choice of analytical tools, including 'thinking about law in disorder' when investigative objectives require it.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2023-from-legal-regulation-to-technical-regulation-of-ai/ 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

[From Legal Regulation to Technical Regulation of AI] Benoit Frydman and David Restrepo Amariles analyze the European normative framework regarding artificial intelligence. They highlight the transition from traditional legal instruments to technical standardization and certification mechanisms, particularly through the European Artificial Intelligence Act. The authors distinguish between three competing regulatory approaches: ethical guidelines, legal rules, and technical standards. They demonstrate that while the latter allow for the integration of legal requirements into artificial intelligence systems throughout their lifecycle, this shift raises major issues for democracy and the rule of law. Indeed, this phenomenon risks delegating the interpretation of fundamental rights, traditionally assigned to public authorities and citizens, to technical and industrial actors. The presumption of legal conformity, induced by compliance with technical standards, thus threatens to obscure the effective protection of human rights in favor of technical procedures and market logics.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/other-academic-work/2023-the-lawyer-as-seen-by-the-philosopher/ 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Lawyer as Seen by the Philosopher] Benoit Frydman traces the philosophical tradition, from Plato to modern times, which equates the lawyer with the sophist and denigrates rhetoric as a mere art of persuasion serving the opinion of the moment. Against this millennial critique, he mobilizes the rehabilitation led by the Brussels School of Chaïm Perelman and his predecessor Eugène Dupréel, who recognize the essential and irreplaceable role of judicial argumentation in the construction of democratic justice. In a democracy and under the rule of law, truth is not a philosophical revelation but the laborious product of adversarial debate nourished by compelling arguments. The lawyer thus becomes the natural defender of democratic institutions against contemporary authoritarian ideologies that reject fair judicial procedures.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2023-the-review-of-public-decisions-made-using-algorithms/ 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Review of Public Decisions Made Using Algorithms] Benoit Frydman examines the legal review of public and administrative decisions automated by algorithms. He details the challenges posed to the rule of law by algorithmic systems (transparency, duty to give reasons, discrimination, mass errors) and identifies the robust legal remedies offered by general administrative law to challenge them. The article emphasizes the critical distinction between predictions, recommendations, and decisions, and calls upon legal professionals and citizens to actively engage in such litigation to preserve rights, freedoms, and democratic accountability against the risks of insufficiently controlled algorithmic governance.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/magazine-press-article/2023-the-in-house-counsel-as-a-corporate-actor-in-a-changing-soc/ 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The In-House Counsel as a Corporate Actor in a Changing Society] This article, the result of a discussion between Benoit Frydman and Christine Declercq, examines the profound transformation of the role of the in-house counsel in the contemporary context of regulatory inflation and the emergence of corporate social responsibilities. The authors demonstrate that the modern legal counsel must now reconcile several functions: guardian of legality, strategic advisor integrated into business decisions, facilitator, and whistleblower in the face of risks. They identify a growing gap between the fragmented legal framework, where legal norms coexist with hybrid sectoral standards and social responsibility requirements, and the need for an integrated legal response. The authors also raise critical future challenges, notably the growing competition from compliance services automated by artificial intelligence, and emphasize the need to radically rethink legal education to prepare lawyers for this multidisciplinary and strategic reality.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/other-academic-work/2023-biographical-note-on-chaim-perelman/ 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Biographical Note on Chaïm Perelman] This biographical note traces the career of Chaïm Perelman (1912-1984), a philosopher of the Brussels School who fundamentally renewed legal methodology by replacing the analysis of judicial reasoning based on formal logic and the syllogism with a theory of argumentation and rhetoric. Perelman and his school developed a pragmatic approach to law, based on case studies and the comparative method, which conceives of law as a dynamic human construction, the product of social struggles and disagreements within pluralistic societies, in fundamental opposition to legal positivism.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-benoit-frydman-and-the-roman-jurists/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Benoit Frydman and the Roman Jurists] Aldo Schiavone, professor of Roman law at Sapienza University of Rome, addresses a fundamental critique to Benoit Frydman's book entitled 'Le sens des lois. Histoire de l'interprétation et de la raison juridique': the work almost entirely omits Roman jurisprudence despite the foundational role it played in the history of legal interpretation. Schiavone defends the central importance of Roman legal thought by characterizing it as a conscious and prolonged activity of interpretation, first of the remote tradition preserved by oral memory, and then developed through two alternative paradigms—the democratic paradigm of the lex publica and the aristocratic paradigm of the ius—which structured the two pillars of Roman law: the ius civile and the ius honorarium. While acknowledging the quality of Benoit Frydman's work, Schiavone concludes that this absence reveals a broader crisis: the tradition of Roman law studies failed during the 20th century to communicate a persuasive image of Roman jurisprudence outside the circle of specialists.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-how-history-is-written-benoit-frydman-and-legal-revolutions/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[How History Is Written. Benoit Frydman and Legal Revolutions] Frederic Audren examines the original historiographical methodology developed by Benoit Frydman in 'Le Sens des lois', which reconstructs the history of legal interpretation not as a linear succession of doctrines but as a succession of paradigms, or 'interpretive machines', specific to each period. Audren analyses Frydman's innovative use of the Foucauldian concept of episteme and the Kuhnian concept of paradigm in order to elucidate the cultural and scholarly conditions underpinning hermeneutic practices across the centuries.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2022-conclusion-the-art-and-manner-of-doing-law-of-the-brussels/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Conclusion: The Art and Manner of Doing Law of the Brussels School] Benoit Frydman and Gregory Lewkowicz assert that the Brussels School conceives of law fundamentally as a practice and an applied art rather than as an abstract or systematic science. Rejecting the 'quintessence abstractors' who construct purely syllogistic reasoning without observing concrete reality, the School favors an empirical study of law based on the observation of its actual functioning in judicial life. This pragmatic approach is manifested notably by a commitment to comparative law, the adoption of a clinical method, and the critique of any methodology that would distort the object of study. The authors situate this predilection for the concrete within an older philosophical tradition, of which the rehabilitation of sophistry against Platonic philosophy constitutes a founding moment.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2022-what-does-the-brussels-school-stand-for/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[What Does the 'Brussels School' Stand For?] Frederic Audren and Benoit Frydman retrace the emergence and definition of the term 'Brussels School', showing its origins in French scientific literature of the late nineteenth century (1898-1907), where it was coined to designate the distinctive approach of the Solvay Institute of Sociology to the social sciences. They examine the institutional structures, the densely woven intellectual networks and the personal relationships among Brussels scholars such as Emile Waxweiler and Ernest Solvay, demonstrating that the School operated as an organised intellectual community extending well beyond formal institutional boundaries, through academic journals, colonial societies, intellectual salons and family connections. The article situates this school within the broader context of the Belle Epoque and establishes its specific features in comparison with the Durkheimian school.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-history-of-interpretation-and-legal-reason-history-of-polit/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[History of Interpretation and Legal Reason, History of (Political) Ideas, History of Law] Pierre-Yves Quiviger undertakes an epistemological and historiographical reflection on the disciplinary nature of Benoit Frydman's Le sens des lois, seeking to determine whether the work belongs to legal history, the history of legal doctrines, the history of legal thought, or a conceptual history of legal ideas. He emphasises that Frydman develops an original history of the hermeneutic tools that law has progressively internalised in variable ways, combining a general history of hermeneutics with a specific history of legal reason, and drawing on authors who are not exclusively jurists, notably Michel Villey. Quiviger then raises the central philosophical question posed by any intersection between history and philosophy of law: is there a timeless or invariant concept of interpretation that makes possible the very study of its historical variations?

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-interpretation-in-public-international-law-in-light-of-beno/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Interpretation in Public International Law in Light of Benoit Frydman's Le sens des lois] Herve Ascensio shows that the pragmatic model of interpretation identified by Benoit Frydman in Le sens des lois offers a particularly apt account of the current state of both the theory and the practice of interpretation in public international law. Articles 31-33 of the Vienna Convention of 23 May 1969 codify this pragmatic model, according to which the interpreter must take into account, at once, the intention of the author, the objective meaning of the text and its usefulness for its addressees, even though such codification produces a segmented reading of international law that carries a risk of 'fragmentation'. Beyond this codification, Ascensio stresses that interpretation constitutes a major issue of power in international law: he identifies a rebalancing of interpretive capacities in favour of States, which are reclaiming control over interpretation, notably through the development of authentic interpretations, thereby revealing the profound transformations of contemporary international society.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2022-the-collective-work-of-the-brussels-school-in-legal-argumen/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Collective Work of the Brussels School in Legal Argumentation (1945-1984)] This article examines the collective work of the Brussels School in legal argumentation and philosophy of law (1945-1984), highlighting that the research conducted by the group has been largely overshadowed by the personal renown of Chaïm Perelman. Benoit Frydman traces the origins of this collective project from the post-war period, shedding light on the historical context of the Second World War and its effects on the Université libre de Bruxelles. The text offers a four-part presentation: the beginnings of the enterprise (1945-1958), the functioning of the legal logic seminar and its protagonists, the collective works published in various series, and the assessment of this work. The article reveals how the Brussels School was established as a collective scientific project transcending the contribution of a single figure.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2022-the-sociological-conception-of-law-of-the-brussels-school-1/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Sociological Conception of Law of the Brussels School (1886-1940)] This article analyzes the sociological conception of law developed by the Brussels School between 1886 and 1940, situating its emergence within the intellectual and political context of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The authors show how this conception was formed in reaction to the Neo-Scholastic School of Louvain and its attempts to ground positive law in Thomistic philosophy. The Brussels School favors an empirical and pragmatic approach, based on the observation of legal and social phenomena, combined with value pluralism and an assumed relativism. This dynamic perspective conceives of law as the provisional product of a permanent struggle between social forces, and constitutes a rehabilitation of sophistry against the Platonic tradition.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/report-working-paper/2022-the-dissemination-of-decisional-data-and-case-law/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Dissemination of Decisional Data and Case Law] Benoit Frydman explains how the concept of case law has evolved since the 19th century, particularly the gradual shift from the traditional historical-philological model to a model based on the balancing of interests and values, driven by the growing influence of European courts (the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union) and the emergence of fundamental rights protection as positive norms. He analyzes the major consequences of the dissemination of decisional data and judicial open data: this digitization and systematic processing will allow lawyers and judges to identify statistical patterns that were previously inaccessible, profoundly altering judicial argumentation and risking the creation of unequal treatment between jurisdictions or individual judges. Finally, he critically examines the risks posed by judicial decision support software, notably proprietary algorithms, and concludes that only a public solution, developed under the exclusive responsibility of judicial authorities and respecting all constitutional, legal, and ethical principles, can be acceptable for the future of French justice.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-the-scientific-method-and-the-study-of-law-or-why-jurists-d/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Scientific Method and the Study of Law, or Why Jurists Do Not Always Like Science] David Soldoni examines Benoit Frydman's critique of normativism in 'Le Sens des Lois' by testing three alleged crises—historical, moral, and functional—and concluding that while the scientific method constrains legal discourse, it remains indispensable to legal science's development. Soldoni argues against the assumption that abandoning positivism will resolve juristic frustration, suggesting instead that future progress depends on the continued epistemological rigor the scientific method provides.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book/2022-the-birth-of-the-brussels-school/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Birth of the Brussels School] The authors introduce a collaborative work examining the emergence and significance of the Brussels School, presenting contributions from a 2019 international symposium that celebrates this pivotal institutional moment at the Université libre de Bruxelles. The volume traces how the School's founding principles—the integration of theory and practice, interdisciplinarity, internationalism, and pluralism—have shaped institutional identity and remain relevant for contemporary university governance. The editors emphasize that the book pursues a critical analysis from multiple perspectives rather than hagiography, drawing on extensive archival research to shed light on this singular moment in the intellectual history of Brussels.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-the-renaissance-in-the-meaning-of-laws-legal-modernity-in-q/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Renaissance in The Meaning of Laws: Legal Modernity in Question] Xavier Prevost examines Benoit Frydman's work 'Le Sens des lois' from the standpoint of a specialist in sixteenth-century legal thought. His detailed analysis of the historical-philological methods of the legal humanists, notably those of Jacques Cujas and Spinoza, raises the major epistemological question of whether the Renaissance constitutes a mere interlude or rather a decisive moment of rupture in the history of legal reason. This inquiry challenges the periodisation proposed by Frydman, who locates the major break between 'the dialectic of the Ancients' and 'the science of the Moderns' in the seventeenth century, and invites us to acknowledge a modernity proper to Renaissance legal thought.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2022-the-legal-control-of-algorithms/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Legal Control of Algorithms] Benoit Frydman examines the legal control of automated administrative decisions under the guarantees of the rule of law, identifying two key dimensions: verifying that algorithmic systems pursue legitimate objectives and employ proportionate means to achieve them, and ensuring compliance with essential procedural and substantive safeguards. The paper analyzes the specific challenges posed by algorithmic opacity (explainability, access to data, parameters, and processing operations), direct and indirect discrimination, notably through algorithmic bias, and the problem that optimization criteria, which are often utilitarian, remain implicit and uncontrollable. Benoit Frydman examines the applicable legal frameworks (Article 22 of the GDPR, French legislation on algorithmic transparency, Dutch case law on the SyRI system) and proposes a mapping of possible defects and remedies, notably mandatory human review and access to effective appeal mechanisms.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book/2022-law-according-to-the-brussels-school/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Law According to the Brussels School] This preface traces the personal and intellectual journey of Benoit Frydman towards the discovery and systematic study of the Brussels School of Law, largely ignored during his training at the ULB but later recognized as fundamental for understanding contemporary law. Benoit Frydman explains how collaborative research with Gregory Lewkowicz revealed that Eugène Dupréel, not Chaïm Perelman, is the true founder of the School, which emerged from the profoundly transformative institutional reforms of the late nineteenth century at the Université libre de Bruxelles. Through seminars, international symposia, and student-led research projects, the authors examined the School's multiple contributions to legal philosophy and jurisprudence by adopting a pragmatic approach to the history of ideas, deliberately distinct from both the philological method and the conceptual approach of major intellectual currents.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/journal-article/2022-the-meaning-of-a-book-and-author-s-replies/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Meaning of a Book and Author's Replies] Benoit Frydman introduces a collection of critical contributions dedicated to the reception of his book 'Le sens des lois'. The volume structures these various readings along two complementary axes: studies dedicated to specific interpretive models and historical analyses ranging from ancient law to twentieth-century normativism, as well as broader methodological critiques questioning the pragmatic foundations and historical approach of the work. Through this intellectual exchange, the collection identifies certain limitations of the book regarding the treatment of Roman law, interpretation during the Renaissance, and global law, while raising fundamental questions about the historical methodology underlying Benoit Frydman's project.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-the-meaning-of-global-law/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Meaning of Global Law] Jean-Yves Cherot examines how the philosophical and empirical works of Benoit Frydman on global law continue and enrich his major historical study, 'Le Sens des lois', by articulating the history of legal thought with concrete investigations into contemporary transnational regulations: internet regulation, ISO standards, corporate social responsibility, governance indicators, and other forms of technical and managerial normativity that structure social relations in the era of globalization. Cherot emphasizes that the Brussels School, through its pragmatic approach, identifies two decisive epistemological breaks with classical legal thought: on the one hand, a break with the theory of sources as conceived in the 19th century, and on the other hand, a break with the concept of the legal order as a rational and complete order of the 17th and 18th centuries. This philosophical rereading of underlying epistemologies aims to legitimize the legal investigation of all forms of effective regulation, beyond the traditional distinctions between law and non-law, thereby situating the work of the Perelman Centre within the pragmatist lineage of the Brussels School.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-the-meaning-of-le-sens-des-lois/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Meaning of 'Le Sens des lois'] Stefan Goltzberg critically examines Benoit Frydman's ambitious history of legal interpretation models, arguing against Frydman's pragmatic and radical rejection of demarcation between legal and non-legal interpretation. While acknowledging Frydman's significant contribution in integrating philosophical and social scientific perspectives into legal scholarship, Goltzberg nevertheless maintains that legal interpretation possesses distinctive substantive features—most notably a particular relationship to textual literalism and a characteristic minimization of historical context—that merit recognition as meaningful differences of degree between legal and non-legal hermeneutical practices. Goltzberg contends that a properly constituted history of interpretative models would reveal legal interpretation's moderate literalism as a defining characteristic.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2022-pragmatic-theories-of-global-law/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Pragmatic Theories of Global Law] Benoit Frydman examines pragmatic theories of global law by tracing their philosophical roots from American pragmatism (Peirce, James, Dewey) through sociological jurisprudence to the contemporary approach of the Brussels School. The pragmatic conception of law, exemplified by Oliver Wendell Holmes's 'law in action' and Chaim Perelman's 'new rhetoric', reconceptualizes law as an experimental and interdisciplinary engagement with normative pluralism that transcends traditional state legal systems. From this perspective, pragmatic theories address both the declining efficacy of classical national law and the emergence of new forms of normativity in a globalized context where multiple actors compete to assert their interests and values through normative engineering.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/journal-article/2022-mireille-delmas-marty-in-brussels/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Mireille Delmas-Marty in Brussels] Benoit Frydman recounts his intellectual exchanges with Mireille Delmas-Marty, notably her participation in Chaïm Perelman's legal logic seminar in Brussels since the 1980s. He demonstrates how her early work on legal concepts with variable content, inspired by Eugène Dupréel's 'confused notions', influenced her seminal book 'Le flou du droit' (1986) and her subsequent engagement with global law theory. During her tenure at the Perelman Chair (1996-1997), Delmas-Marty developed her major concept of 'ordered pluralism', which rejects Kelsenian monism in favor of a multiplicity of legal orders in mutual adjustment through harmonization, initiating one of the major currents in contemporary global legal studies.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/preface-foreword/2022-preface-to-law-according-to-the-brussels-school/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Preface to 'Law According to the Brussels School'] In this preface, Benoit Frydman traces his intellectual journey, marked by the gradual discovery of the work of Chaim Perelman and the Brussels School. Describing how, from 2013 onwards, the Brussels School itself became an object of collective research, he presents a pragmatic history of legal ideas that distinguishes itself from traditional philological and conceptual approaches by favoring the study of strategies and struggles developed by groups within specific institutions. Frydman highlights the unconscious and deliberate transmission of this pragmatic legal culture through teaching at the ULB, characterized by the study of living law and the art of argumentation rather than the articulation of abstract principles, paying tribute to Pierre Van Ommeslaghe and Jacques Vanderlinden.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/journal-article/2022-the-author-s-replies/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Author's Replies] Benoit Frydman responds to the criticisms addressed to his monograph Le Sens des lois by defending his methodological choices: privileging models of interpretation theorised across historical periods rather than reconstructing the interpretive practices of specific communities of jurists. He acknowledges significant omissions concerning Renaissance legal humanism and the Roman jurisconsults, but justifies this structure by showing that the book gives precedence to the moment when models become predominant rather than to their initial formulation. He reflects on the complex relationship between authoritative texts (Roman law, biblical sources) and modern interpretive frameworks, and highlights how different models—rhetorical, geometrical, philological, pragmatic—are inscribed within the history of Western legal thought.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/about-reviews-of-benoit-frydman/2022-the-use-of-interpretation-for-private-law-a-reading-of-le-s/ 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Use of Interpretation for Private Law: A Reading of 'Le Sens des lois' by Benoit Frydman] Remy Libchaber critically examines 'Le Sens des lois' by Benoit Frydman, a foundational work that offered a comprehensive historical and philosophical exploration of legal interpretation techniques. Although Frydman's groundbreaking study demolished naive positivist assumptions regarding the univocity of textual meaning and established interpretation as a complex and non-neutral hermeneutic practice, Libchaber notes that French private law doctrine has largely neglected these decisive contributions. French jurists continue to operate within a positivist framework assuming that texts possess a determinate and original meaning waiting for neutral discovery, despite Frydman's demonstration that interpretation necessarily involves a creative engagement with textual meaning. Libchaber suggests that institutional constraints and the historical French attachment to legislative supremacy make hermeneutic reform less effective than a strategy focused on the restrictive implementation of the rule.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/magazine-press-article/2020-benoit-frydman-philosopher-on-covid-19-what-happened-in-nur/ 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Benoit Frydman, philosopher, on Covid-19: 'What happened in nursing homes is a mass slaughter' (video)] Benoit Frydman, jurist and philosopher, severely criticizes the management of the COVID-19 crisis in Belgian nursing homes, describing it as a 'mass slaughter' that resulted in the deaths of 4,800 people in inhumane conditions contrary to human dignity. The author primarily denounces the dilution of political and administrative responsibilities characteristic of the Belgian power system, where accountability is systematically diluted across different levels of authority. He also highlights the contradictory directives that led hospitals to reject en masse the admission of nursing home residents, despite the proven availability of beds. Benoit Frydman calls for a serious criminal investigation led by several investigating judges and firmly defends the freedom of expression of scientists in the face of intimidation attempts.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/magazine-press-article/2020-in-the-midst-of-a-pandemic-the-government-attacks-the-parti/ 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

[In the Midst of a Pandemic, the Government Attacks the Participatory Democracy of the Citizen Jury] Benoit Frydman vigorously criticizes a reform project of the Belgian government aiming to abolish the citizen jury and the Court of Assizes during the Covid-19 pandemic. The author asserts that the right to sit on a jury constitutes the principal political right of citizens after the right to vote, and that Belgians display a deep attachment to this institution. He denounces the official arguments justifying the abolition and reveals the true objective: to restore criminal prosecutions against the press and the media, making it possible to muzzle journalists and whistleblowers. Frydman emphasizes that this suppression of a participatory democratic institution, although constitutionally protected, would represent contempt for the people and a weakening of democracy.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2020-foucault-law-and-the-dynastics-of-knowledge/ 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Foucault, Law and the Dynastics of Knowledge] This article by Benoit Frydman and Nathan Genicot re-examines the place of law in the work of Michel Foucault in light of the recent publication of his early lectures at the Collège de France. Against the common reading that views Foucault merely as a critic of carceral institutions, the authors show that Foucault conceives of law and its procedures as producers of knowledge and as shapers of the conditions of possibility for knowledge. They develop and deepen the Foucauldian thesis of the 'dynastics of knowledge': the evolution of legal institutions determines the constitution and transformation of knowledge. This encounter with the law provokes a decisive shift in the Foucauldian program towards genealogy and the analytics of power. Foucauldian analyses of contemporary normative apparatuses remain essential for thinking about the transformations of current law and invite legal scholars to appropriate new global normativities.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/magazine-press-article/2020-digital-tracking-a-red-line-not-to-be-crossed/ 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Digital tracking: a red line not to be crossed] In this interview, jurist and legal philosopher Benoit Frydman offers analysis of state management of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in Belgium and Europe, emphasizing the absence of international coordination and solidarity among European Union member states. While acknowledging that special emergency powers granted to the federal government are legitimate during a severe health crisis, Benoit Frydman identifies digital surveillance and citizen geolocation as a red line never to be crossed, as these would irreversibly open the door to a surveillance society incompatible with fundamental freedoms and democracy. He expresses hopes for the post-crisis period: preserving pillars of social protection (healthcare, education), implementing a Green New Deal favoring green and sustainable technologies over polluting sectors, and ensuring universal social security for precarious workers and those in the digital economy.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2020-law-as-raw-material-and-finished-product/ 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Law as Raw Material and Finished Product] Benoit Frydman explores how law functions as a commodity and a strategic resource in global markets, examining the perspectives of individuals and corporations navigating across multiple national jurisdictions. Through examples ranging from consumer behavior to corporate tax optimization strategies, he demonstrates how traditional state regulation is partially giving way to alternative governance mechanisms operating through value chains and corporate social responsibility. Although the latter has become a major strategic concern for most executives, it has not been sufficient to prevent exploitation, suggesting that the struggle for law in the global environment is only just beginning.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2020-perelman-chaim-1912-1984/ 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z 2020-01-01T00:00:00Z

[PERELMAN Chaim (1912-1984)] Benoit Frydman presents an encyclopedic overview of Chaim Perelman's major contributions to legal philosophy and the theory of justice, tracing how Perelman moved beyond the constraints of formal logic to establish argumentation as the foundation for understanding justice and judicial reasoning. Benoit Frydman emphasizes that Perelman identified six competing conceptions of justice (egalitarian, merit-based, need-based, performance-based, rank-based, and formally legal) that express irreducible values and cannot be reconciled through logic alone; instead, they must be weighed argumentatively depending on concrete circumstances. The article's central argument is that judicial decisions constitute paradigmatic acts of practical reasoning in which judges justify their choices before a 'universal audience,' thereby integrating principles of justice into the ongoing development of positive law and transcending the false divide between natural law and positive law.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/book-chapter/2019-adolphe-prins-and-the-brussels-school-social-defense-in-the/ 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z

[Adolphe Prins and the Brussels School: Social Defense in the War of Ideas] Benoit Frydman examines the founding work of Adolphe Prins and traces the emergence and intellectual significance of the Brussels School by placing their contribution within the turbulent and highly conflictual intellectual context of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He analyzes the major and enduring conflict between progressive positivists, convinced of the need to reform society through empirical scientific methods, and the defenders of spiritualist doctrinaire traditions within the Université libre de Bruxelles, a conflict that led to the creation of independent and innovative institutions such as the Solvay Institute of Sociology and the Université nouvelle. The article convincingly demonstrates that Prins's doctrine of social defense, rigorously combining the positivist method with pragmatist philosophy, constitutes a profound and innovative reform of criminal law and justice, oriented towards a scientific response to the social question of the time and exerting a lasting intellectual and practical influence on contemporary legal and criminological thought.

fr https://benoitfrydman.com/en/magazine-press-article/2019-the-supreme-court-has-put-an-end-to-the-populist-drift/ 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z

[The Supreme Court Has Put an End to the Populist Drift] In this interview, Benoit Frydman welcomes the unanimous, clear, and firm decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom invalidating the unlawful suspension of the British Parliament ordered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, characterizing it as a courageous defense of the rule of law and democratic institutions. He identifies a worrying populist trend sweeping across Europe and the world, wherein political leaders—notably Donald Trump, Matteo Salvini, as well as certain Polish and Hungarian rulers—claim to embody the will of the people in order to better bypass parliamentary and judicial oversight, thereby undermining the very foundations of constitutional democracy. Benoit Frydman warns that Belgium itself is not spared from this threat: he cites instances where the government has flouted judicial decisions and attempted to govern with a parliamentary majority that has become a minority, all of which are signs of an authoritarian drift comparable to that which led Europe to dictatorships during the last century.