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Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding

The team of the NWO Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University (Rotterdam), is organising the conference ‘Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding’ on 19 and 20 October 2023 at the Erasmus Paviljoen at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Access to civil justice is of paramount importance for enforcing citizens’ rights. At the heart of access to civil justice lies litigation funding and cost management. Yet, over the past decades, access to justice has been increasingly put under pressure due to retrenching governments, high costs of procedure, and the inefficiency of courts and justice systems. Within this context, the funding of litigation in Europe seems to be shifting from public to private sources. Private actors and innovative business models emerged to provide new solutions to the old problem of financial barriers of access to justice.

With the participation of policymakers, practitioners, academics, and civil society representatives from all over Europe and beyond, the conference seeks to delve deeper into the financial implications of access to justice and the different ways to achieve sustainable civil justice systems in Europe.

The topics addressed in this international academic conference will include the different methods of financing dispute resolution, particularly in the context of group litigation (third-party funding, crowdfunding, blockchain technologies), public interest litigation, developments in ADR/ODR, the new business models of legal professionals as well as law and economics aspects on litigation funding. The conference is supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Find the link to registration here.

Please find the preliminary conference programme below.

Call for papers Vici Conference Sustainable justice 2023.pdf

Provisional Programme.pdf

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Building EU 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. We investigate 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 connected Vici project financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), that kicked off on 1 December 2020, 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.

Events & Newsletters

  • On 19-20 October 2023 we are organising a conference on Sustaining Access to Justice
  • From December 2022 till June 2023 the Vici team will organize a series of online, hybrid and live seminars on Developments and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice; the first one takes place on 7 December 2022, 10:00-12:15 CET (register 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…

  • 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!