Le 11 septembre 2001 et le droit économique

September 11 2001 events, in all their archaism, are meaningful not only for the role of States as source of law but also for the globalisation phenomenon in one of its most crucial consequence: the « merchandisation » of most, if not all, human exchanges. The previously unchallenged belief in self regulation must be reassessed in the light of these events. Trade alone is not a warranty for peace. Contract has no capacity to realise social regulation by and as of itself. Clearly the State ? Cosmopolitic State as defined by Kant ? must emerge again in order to define a global legal space. That State must not be the minimalist version of it which has been accepted in the late XXth century. The fact that many more exchanges have been treated as goods or services when they should have stayed outside the economic sphere (health, security, education, culture, to cite only a few) is challenged in the most dramatic manner. Action is urgently needed to change gear and prevent more horrendous similar events.