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Building European Civil Justice

Access to civil justice is of paramount importance for enforcing the rights of consumers and businesses and protecting fundamental rights. Key issues in the current efforts to improve access to justice at the EU and national level are the digitisation of procedures and decision making, the privatisation of justice (ADR), increasing self-representation, and court specialisation. In our ERC consolidator project ‘Building European Civil Justice’ (2017-2022), we investigated how these trends develop and how these influence access to justice in selected Member States and at the EU level, and how these influence the emerging EU civil justice system. Another key issue in access to justice the costs and funding of civil justice. In the ongoing Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), we investigate the repercussions on access to justice of developments in litigation funding, and in particular the shift from public to private funding and cost management measures. In our research we combine legal-normative research and comparative law with empirical research, which helps us in testing and revising our ideas. Our mission is to connect the dots in order to help build and maintain a sustainable civil justice system in Europe.

Upcoming & Recent events

• 19 November 2024, webinar Law in Public Interest: Collective Redress, Funding & Climate Regulation, registration here
• 10 September 2024, 10-12 am CET: Book launch Research Methods in Private International Law, in collaboration with the University of Vigo (online, registration here)
• 23 September 2024, 10-11.30 am CET: Webinar Educating the Next Generation of Conflicts Lawyers, co-organised by the University of Vigo, Sydney University and ASIL (registration here)
• Here is our third ERC project Newsletter (November 2020) including our publications, events and other news!
• Here are our first ERC project Newsletter (2018) and second Newsletter (2019) including publications events and accomplishments

Missions accomplished…

• Book Financing Collective Actions in the Netherlands published! Open access here.
• On 3 July 2024, the Webinar Financing collective actions took place, info here
• On 6 June 2024 Carlota Ucin organised the Workshop Emerging Trends in Participatory Justice (in person), more info here.The contributions will be published in a special issue of Erasmus Law Review (edited by Carlota Ucin) in 2025
• On 19-20 October 2023 our Vici team organised a conference on Sustaining Access to Justice at Erasmus School of Law, see here for the recap. We are currently preparing an edited volume on the topic, accpted for publication by Hart Publishing.
• Our Vici team hosted a seminar series on Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice between December 2021 and June 2022, incuding a hybrid final seminar on Regulating third party financing (view full program and conference report)
• Book Frontiers in Civil Justice: Privatisation, Monetisation and Digitisation published (eds. Xandra Kramer, Jos Hoevenaars, Betül Kas & Erlis Themeli), Edward Elgar 2022
• Book New Pathways to Civil Justice in Europe published (eds. Xandra Kramer, Alexandre Biard, Jos Hoevenaars & Erlis Themeli), Springer 2021
• Conference on International Commercial Courts, co-organized with BIICL on 17 September 2021.
• Online seminar series by the ERC group zooming in on the different research topics of members in Spring 2021
• Our online Conference Frontiers in Civil Justice was held on 16 and 17 November 2020. View the programme and read the full conference report here.
• A webinar on The ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure: soft law shaping the future of European Civil Procedure? was held on 6 November 2020. View the program and news item.
• International Business Courts: A European and Global Perspective (eds. Xandra Kramer & John Sorabji), Eleven International Publishing 2019. Order your paper copy here. The electronic version is available open access here.
• Special issue dedicated to International Business Courts of Erasmus Law Review (2019/1). The Introduction is available here.
• On 2-3 May 2019, the ERC project team and the e-CODEX Plus project jointly organized the successful conference ‘e’ Meets Justice in Lisbon.
• Conference: Challenge Accepted! Exploring Pathways to Civil Justice in Europe, ERC conference Rotterdam, 19-20 November 2018 (program in pdf). Read the conference report published in the European Review of Private Law here.
• Innovating International Business Courts: a European Outlook, seminar Rotterdam, 10 July 2018. Read the seminar report published in the European Review of Private Law here.

Suggestions are welcome. Seeking collaboration? Wanting to build bridges? Contact us!