Law, time and oxymora: a synaesthetic exploration of the future role of customary global law

For a future global legal order capable of addressing the most serious contemporary problems to emerge a new understanding of law and its related concepts needs to be sought. This search requires first the creation of new tools of perception and eventually a cognitive revolution as institutional changes are usually preceded by cognitive changes. Cognitive changes, on the other hand, can be measured by changes in language, in technology, and in law. At the same time, important changes can also be driven by law. It is therefore important to take notice of drastic changes in the context and discuss them in the legal realm.
Generally, a recent rise in the number of oxymora and paradoxes used in science and in law seem to suggest a silent cognitive revolution requiring also a new thinking in legal terms. This article will briefly exemplify the ramifications of this rise by reference to the two related concepts of “sustainable development” and “customary global law”, both of which have tellingly been identified as oxymora. These two and other oxymora also indicate an important shift in the perception of time, as perhaps “the greatest remaining mystery” in the present world. This shift in the perception of time and the changing cognitive conditions will be discussed by virtue of the related terms of synaesthesia and holonomy, which both share an emphasis on the relation between different parts and the whole by way of a greater integration of different sources of information. Such greater integration of different sources of sensory and other kinds of information, possibly achieved by a future homo synaestheticus, will be needed if humanity were to successfully tackle the current serious challenges as posed by the global governance debate in the 21st century.