February 24, 2025

The Law and the Brave New World of the 21st Century

By August Bequai, Invictus Editor*


“Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with
reason, is also the only creature to pin its
existence on things unreasonable.”
– Henri Bergson (American edition, 1935)

Prelude

The role of legal historians is to study how the law and the systems that it has spawned, took root, and evolved throughout history; deciphering the forces (economic, political, environmental, and social) that impacted on its evolution and continue to shape it.

While humanity has employed an array of diverse legal systems throughout its history, their underlined tenet, from the days of Ancient Egypt to the present, has remained steadfast: resolving disputes among individuals and nations, without resorting to the use of force. With lawyers overseeing, navigating, and enforcing the laws mandates.

Brave New World Revisited

While the 20th century witnessed dramatic economic, political, environmental, and social forces at play which dramatically transformed the law, these pale in comparison to the many new and novel challenges it faces in the 21st century. These will test the mettle of the law, with disastrous consequences for civilization if it fails.

  • Unprecedented Disparities in Wealth: The globalist policies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries; galvanized by the IT and AI Revolutions, have led to disparities in wealth unprecedented in human history. The top one percent of the world’s population owns more than 50 percent of its wealth, while the bottom 50 percent owns less than two percent. With the advent of AI and related technologies, those disparities are likely to continue to increase dramatically. Today’s unprecedented disparities in wealth pose serious challenges to the rule of law. The 20th century is replete with examples of class warfare.
  • Global Pandemics on the Rise: These are no strangers to human history. For example: Ancient Rome’s Antonine Plague (165–180 CE), Byzantium’s Justinian Plague (541–542 CE), Afro-Eurasia’s Black Death (1347–1351), Asia’s Third Plague Pandemic (1855–1960), Spanish Flu (1918-1920), Asian Flu (1957–1958), Honk Kong Flu (1968–1969), HIV/AIDS Pandemic (1981–Present), and COVID-19 (2019–present). Global pandemics have killed hundreds of millions, wiped-out entire civilizations, and on several occasions brought humanity to near extinction. Global trade, wars, and mass migrations are synonymous with global pandemics. They facilitate the transmission of deadly microbes from one region of the world to another. Europe’s Bubonic Plague, which wiped out half its population, had its roots in trade with Asia. Smallpox, brought to the Americas by European explorers and settlers, decimated the local native populations. The COVID-19 pandemic, facilitated by global trade and travel, made its way from China to every corner of the world in a brief period, killing millions in its wake, and finding the law ill-prepared to address its challenge.
  • Rise of Techno-Crimes: The High-Tech Revolution of the late 20th and early 21st centuries has facilitated the commission of white-collar crimes worldwide. The manipulation and theft of data have become commonplace; as have massive financial frauds, and the use of technology to hold public and private organizations hostage. Paper and ink have given way to electronic blips. Traditional crime has gone cyber. If the 20th century serves as a guide, the law in the 21st century will continue to play catch up; especially as AI, Robotics and related technologies increasingly permeate our daily lives.
  • Global Political Instability: During the Cold War, the Western democracies and the Communist Bloc dominated the global scene. With the collapse of the latter (1989–1991) political instability and regional conflicts ensued dramatically and became the norm in the 21st century. Dramatic advances in technology, galvanized by the rise of extreme religious and secular dogmas, have added fuel to the fire. Millions have fallen victim, with no region of the earth spared. If history is a guide, lest the law meets these challenges the future portends ill for humanity.
  • Dramatic Mass Migrations: Economic, political, social, and environmental forces have propelled mass migrations since the dawn of recorded history. For example: Indo-European Migrations (c. 4000–1000 BCE); Bantu Migrations in Africa (c. 1500 BCE–500 CE); Germanic Tribal Migrations (c. 300–800 CE); Polynesian (Lapita culture) Migrations (1500 BCE–1200 CE); European Colonial Expansion (15th–20th Century); Atlantic and Pacific Slave Trades (16th–19th Century); and Great Migrations to the Americas and Australia/New Zealand (19th–20th Century). Human mass migrations continue unabated well into the 21st century, giving rise to an array of political, social, and economic challenges throughout the world. The law has been slow to catch up.
  • Privacy Lost Forever: The IT and AI revolutions have given private and public groups; with nation-states leading the charge, the ability to monitor the daily lives and activities of the individual with no such precedent in history. Widespread data collections and sharing, social media, biometrics, AI algorithms, and quantum computing, to list some, have dealt privacy a serious blow from which it will never recover. Global efforts to combat the threats to privacy have taken the form of a patchwork of laws and regulations; often too little and late, and usually cosmetic.
  • Climate Changes and Threats: Recorded history offers ample examples of the economic, political, and social havoc that climate change can cause. Among these: collapse of civilizations (e.g., China’s Ming Dynasty); global famines (e.g., Great Famine of 1315–1317); mass migrations from the Steppes (e.g., Hunnic invasions of 4th–5th Centuries CE, and Turkic Migrations of 6th–11th centuries CE); and global migrations of the 20th–21st centuries. While numerous laws and regulations were enacted worldwide in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to address the challenges wrought by climate change, agreement on scientific findings and enforcement of these have often been lacking. Complicated by the various economic and national interests at play.
  • Transnational Criminal Cartels: Organized crime is no stranger to history. Neither Ancient Rome nor Imperial China lacked in criminal cartels. However, the technological revolution of the last 50 years, severe global pandemics, political instability the world over, and ill-prepared governmental agencies and legal systems, to name a few, have enabled local and regional criminal cartels to operate globally with impunity. These criminal syndicates permeate every corner of the world; more than 2,400 by the last count, numbering in the millions in members and associates. Armies that would rival the Huns and Mongols of Antiquity. For example: Asia’s Triads; Europe’s Cosa Nostra, Camorra, and Ndrangheta; Japan’s Yakuza families; Latin America’s Drug Cartels; Balkan Crime Syndicates; and Africa’s Numbers Gangs. Transnational crime in the 21st century poses a threat to every nation on the globe; bearing semblance to the threats ancient nomadic tribes posed to sedentary societies. Today’s criminal cartels are well organized, politically savvy, wealthy, and working in unison (Confederation of Necessity) with other global crime syndicates and rogue nation states. They have had no problem adapting the tools of high technology when needed, while the law and police agencies around the world play catch-up. The challenges they pose for legal systems the world over is real and serious.
  • Big Brother Revisited: In his classic book 1984, George Orwell described a world ruled by three large one-party totalitarian states. The 21st century presents us with a world where extreme political and religious groups, armed with the new tools of technology, seek to impose their will and dogma on the many. As in Orwell’s 1984, where Big Brother employed technology and an army of devout party followers to manipulate and control the many, these 21st century groups employ the recent technologies of our time and an army of true believers to manipulate and exert control over society. The ability of the law to address the threat may determine the course humanity takes in the 21st century.
  • Cyber-Legal Systems: The law in the 21st century is in a state of dramatic flux. It is not far-fetched to envision a 21st century world where AI and related technologies replace lawyers in the many roles that they perform to carry out the mandates of the law. Carried out to its extreme, in the name of expediency and economy of time and resources, AI may replace judges. The law has been slow to react.

Closing

The 21st century poses serious challenges for the law and its army of lawyers the world over. It would prove tragic for humanity if the majesty of the law were to fall victim to the Brave New World of the 21st century. It is beholden on lawyers to ensure this will not happen. To quote Cicero (in his defense of Milo, 52 BCE), “The laws are silent, amid weaponry.”

*The views expressed are solely those of the Editor.