The history of cochlear implant from the 1970s has been characterized by a scientific, ethical, political and anthropological controversy. Combining recent breakthroughs within the sociology of law and socio-historical studies about deaf people’s collective mobilizations, we analyze the way French deaf people collectively seized the juridical tool to sustain their claims in the French health and medical fields, and specifically against cochlear implants. To that purpose, we will study the two deaf associations which pushed forward mobilizations about the cochlear implant in France: “les Sourds en Colère” (1993-1997) and “L’association de Défense des Personnes Implantées Cochléaires” (ADPIC, since 2007). We will show, on the one hand, how these associations’ nature and composition have evolved, and on the other hand, changes on their uses of law; we will see how definitions of deafness and cochlear implants evolve alongside these transformations. While, in the early 90’s, “les Sourds en colère” association used public health regulations and laws in their struggle against cochlear implants qualified as a medical experimentation, two decades later, within a new medical, juridical and activism era, the ADPIC defines itself as a victims’ association claiming for reparation. Doing so, it moves to the human rights field and presents cochlear implantation as a violation of the physical integrity of deaf people. These various ways to qualify cochlear implantation are, more basically, different ways of questioning definitions of deafness, disability and the medical rehabilitative intervention.