INTRODUCTION

A strong trend is emerging in our postmodern, neoliberal world in the context of the globalized and digitalized society, which extends its tentacles further each day: namely, the firm belief in the necessity to adapt and an increasingly more forceful injunction to do so.

A number of the subjects selected for the Kobe Conference of the International Association of Procedural Law (IAPL) echo this evolution and injunction: multinational rules and systems of dispute resolution in the era of global economy; accountability and transparency in the course of civil justice; application of electronic technologies in judicial proceedings; and current situations and problems regarding new types of evidence.

Is it because of this necessity of adaptation that a movement of rapprochement of national civil procedures started over 20 or so years ago throughout the world, under the effect of a degree of elimination of borders, and state financial preoccupations that ineluctably have consequences for the structure of justice and the running – when required – of civil actions?

In section 2 of this chapter, we shall first examine what kind of injunction may be involved: why adapt and transform? In section 3, we shall then examine the directions to be taken or that tend to be taken where legislators and other legal protagonists follow through on the injunction to adapt. Finally, in section 4, the question is raised as to whether the purportedly required adaptation is indispensable or whether a certain resistance should not be instigated in order to safeguard certain values that are precious to the democratic processualist with a concern for fundamental rights.

THE INJUNCTION: TO ADAPT AND TRANSFORM

“Il faut s’adapter” – one must adapt. This is the formula that has flourished not only in political and economic domains, but also in the field of law. There is allegedly an ineluctable and imperious necessity for transformation and adaptation in a globalized and increasingly digitalized society. One should not be overtaken in the fierce competition, or in world or European rankings.