News

European Civil Justice key events and publications in 2024

Happy New Year’s wishes from our Vici Building European Civil Justice group. This year will mark a range of important events and book publications. We will host a series of webinars that will kick-off in the Spring. We are very happy that after a slow start during the pandemic, the book Research Methods in Private International Law, co-edited by Xandra Kramer and Laura Carballo Piñeiro is scheduled for publication by Elgar in May 2024. It contains fascinating chapters on regulatory, research and teaching approaches, including by our postdoc researchers Adriani Dori and Carlota Ucin. Around the same time we expect that the book Financing Collective Actions in the Netherlands: towards a Litigation Fund will be published by Eleven International Publishing, co-authored by our researchers Xandra Kramer and Jos Hoevenaars in collaboration with Ianika Tzankova and Karlijn van Doorn.This is an updated English version of a report commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Justice. We are also excited about compiling our Handbook on European Civil Procedure, commissioned by The Gruyter that we co-edit together with Stefaan Voet and with a stellar author team. We will also submit the manuscript for our book on Sustainable Access to Justice, following our international conference of October of last year, co-edited by our group members Xandra Kramer, Masood Ahmed, Carlota Ucin and Adriani Dori featuring interesting chapters by our fantastic speakers and our PhD researchers Adrian Cordina and Eduardo Silva de Freitas. The latter two hope to wrap up most of their PhD research this year, together with our group member Antonia Antonopoulou. We are also happy to host guest PhD researcher Zilin Hao for six months who will introduce herself shortly. Our group is open for hosting other visiting researchers and for applications of (self-funded) new PhD candidates this year, and we look forward to many other collaborations to keep broadening our horizons.

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EU flag ERC logo

European Civil Justice key events and publications in 2024

Happy New Year’s wishes from our Vici Building European Civil Justice group. This year will mark a range of important events and book publications. We will host a series of webinars that will kick-off in the Spring. We are very happy that after a slow start during the pandemic, the book Research Methods in Private International Law, co-edited by Xandra Kramer and Laura Carballo Piñeiro is scheduled for publication by Elgar in May 2024. It contains fascinating chapters on regulatory, research and teaching approaches, including by our postdoc researchers Adriani Dori and Carlota Ucin. Around the same time we expect that the book Financing Collective Actions in the Netherlands: towards a Litigation Fund will be published by Eleven International Publishing, co-authored by our researchers Xandra Kramer and Jos Hoevenaars in collaboration with Ianika Tzankova and Karlijn van Doorn.This is an updated English version of a report commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Justice. We are also excited about compiling our Handbook on European Civil Procedure, commissioned by The Gruyter that we co-edit together with Stefaan Voet and with a stellar author team. We will also submit the manuscript for our book on Sustainable Access to Justice, following our international conference of October of last year, co-edited by our group members Xandra Kramer, Masood Ahmed, Carlota Ucin and Adriani Dori featuring interesting chapters by our fantastic speakers and our PhD researchers Adrian Cordina and Eduardo Silva de Freitas. The latter two hope to wrap up most of their PhD research this year, together with our group member Antonia Antonopoulou. We are also happy to host guest PhD researcher Zilin Hao for six months who will introduce herself shortly. Our group is open for hosting other visiting researchers and for applications of (self-funded) new PhD candidates this year, and we look forward to many other collaborations to keep broadening our horizons.

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Adriani Dori: a summa cum laude success

Yesterday was a momentous day for our research group as we celebrated the successful defense of Adriani Dori’s PhD dissertation at the University of Heidelberg. Her hard work and dedication have paid off, and we are thrilled to announce that she was awarded summa cum laude.

Adriani’s research has been an inspiration to us all, and we are proud to have her as a member of our team. Her thesis is a testament to her expertise in procedural law. It explores how EU justice policies reshape national procedures and incentivize civil justice reforms, with a focus on the interplay between the rule of law, economic efficiency, and access to justice.

Adriani’s research has been recognized, and we are confident that her work will positively impact the field of procedural law.

Congratulations, Adriani, on this well-deserved achievement!

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Jos Hoevenaars joins Vici ‘Affordable Justice’ team

On 1 November 2023, Jos Hoevenaars re-joined Erasmus School of Law after completing a one-year research project at the Dutch Council for the Judiciary which focused on questions of effectiveness of judgments in the Dutch legal system (report available early 2024). Previously, he was part of our ERC ‘Building EU civil justice’ team, where his research focused mainly on (self)representation in court and access to justice in a cross-border context. In 2022, he was the executive project manager for a study commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security and its Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) that looked into the usefulness and necessity of a litigation fund for collective actions in the Netherlands (Dutch report available here, English book forthcoming).

The coming years he will strengthen the Vici ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ team, focusing on costs and funding of collective actions, and he will develop a new line of research in the area of strategic litigation in which he will investigate the collective and representative action field from a legal mobilisation perspective. He will also play a role in the setting up of a European Civil Justice Centre.

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Conference Recap: “Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding”

Conference Recap: “Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding”

We are thrilled to announce the successful completion of our much-anticipated conference, “Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding”, which took place on 19-20 October 2023. This two-day event brought together esteemed legal professionals, scholars, and researchers from around the world to engage in profound discussions on the critical issues surrounding litigation funding methods and their impact on various stakeholders.


Day 1 Highlights:

The conference commenced with an enlightening keynote speech by Rachael Mulheron. Her comprehensive and critical overview of litigation funding methods provided valuable insights into their implications for all actors involved in legal proceedings.

Moderated by Ianika Tzankova, Panel 1: Emerging Trends in Litigation Funding: Crowdfunding, Third-Party Funding, and Beyond delved into the advantages, challenges, and potential risks associated with these alternative funding avenues. Alan Uzelac, Alexandre Biard, Maria José Azar-Baud, and Thomas Stouten engaged in thoughtful discussions, exploring the broader implications of litigation funding from the perspectives of civil procedure, consumer organisations and arbitration.

Under the insightful moderation of María Carlota Ucín, Panel 2: Altruistic Ventures: Balancing Profitability and Social Impact – Myth or Reality? examined the delicate balance between profitability and social impact in funding public interest litigation, after an introductory video. Thomas Kohlmeier, Magdalena Tulibacka, Jelle Klaas, Katherine Mulhern, and Giuseppe Farchione participated in a dynamic living room-style discussion, shedding light on the complexities of this intersection from the viewpoint of human rights, commercial funders and (idealistic) funding platforms.

The first day concluded with Panel 3: Early Career Researchers’ Presentations, moderated by Eva Storskrubb. The panel featured enlightening presentations by David Markworth on innovative approaches to enforcing consumer claims in the German legal services market and Dani Habel’s exploration of crowdfunding in class actions.


Day 2 Highlights:

The second day commenced with Panel 4: Current and Future Trends of ADR and ODR Procedures within the Modern Civil Justice System, featuring insightful presentations by Emma Coleman, Dorcas Quek, and Emma van Gelder. Moderated by Masood Ahmed, this panel provided diverse perspectives on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in England and Singapore and experiences with Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) procedures in the Netherlands, highlighting the evolving landscape of dispute resolution methods and cost repercussions.

The conference reached its zenith with a compelling keynote speech by Andreas Stein. Stein provided a thoughtful analysis of the EU’s role in regulating litigation funding concerning representative actions in particular, tracing past developments and outlining future prospects following the EP Resolution.

In the closing Panel 5: Entrepreneurial Lawyering: Lawyers as Gatekeepers or Market Players?, an engaging discussion ensued under the moderation of Stefaan Voet. Anthony Sebok, Catherine Rogers, Panagiotis Perakis, and Wieger Wielinga explored the evolving role of lawyers as market players, delving into its legal, economic, and ethical implications, including the role of third-party funding in shaping this landscape.

In retrospect, our conference “Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: New Avenues for Costs and Funding” stands as a testament to the vitality of ongoing dialogues in the field. The profound insights shared, and discussions held during these two days have undoubtedly contributed significantly to our understanding of the complex dynamics surrounding litigation funding.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all speakers, moderators, attendees, and organizers whose collective efforts made this conference a resounding success.

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Foreign expert for UK Government Open Innovation Team on civil legal aid

Xandra Kramer participated in an interview by the Open Innovation Team of the UK government working on civil legal aid in September 2023. She provided information on developments and ongoing innovations in legal aid, digitalisation and specific pathways in the Netherlands, including on the ‘wijkrechter’. She also participated in a follow-up online review of civil legal aid in England & Wales, organised on 17 October 2023 which aimed at exchanging thoughts with experts in different countries.

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Guest Researcher Jonathan Drücker from Germany

We are hosting visiting researcher Jonathan Drücker, PhD researcher at Augsburg University, in October-November for a few weeks research stay.

He presents himself: “Currently, I am working on my PhD-thesis which deals with a jurisdiction over companies based in non-member states by using their EU based parent company as an `anchor defendant´ in human rights litigation cases. As the Dutch law has the reputation of being on the frontier of development when it comes to corporate responsibility, I am very fortunate to be hosted by the Erasmus University Rotterdam for a two week research visit, which enables me to develop a comparative approach in respect of jurisdiction and private enforcement. I want to thank the University, notably Professor Xandra Kramer and her team for the friendly invitation and for making my visit possible on short notice.

I am looking forward to broaden my horizon by discussing thoughts and ideas with international experts and finding different legal perspectives and solutions for social and economic problems raised by globalisation and transnational supply chains in the field of international civil procedure law in an enriching and diverse environment.”

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Guest Researcher Johannes Nickl from Heidelberg

We are currently hosting Johannes Nickl as a guest researcher at our team and Erasmus School of Law for a period of three week. Johannes is writing his doctoral thesis on third party litigation funding in collective redress at Heidelberg University.

What brings him to Rotterdam? “As I am exploring the topic of my thesis on a comparative basis, Erasmus School of Law and Xandra Kramer’s group was the natural choice to learn more about third party litigation funding in collective redress in general and the situation in the Netherlands in particular. Although I’ve been here only for a week, I’ve already gathered plenty of new insights and had many fruitful and inspiring discussions. The conference with its wide range of distinguished experts as speakers and panelists surely will be another highlight I’m already looking forward to!”

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Presentation legal finance summit Frankfurt

Xandra Kramer gave the 2023 Nivalion legal finance summit lecture in Frankfurt on 26 September 2023, in collaboration with Thomas Kohmeier. The lecture was dedicated to the question whether further regulation is needed in the area of third party litigation funding. She discussed developments in regulation and gave illustrations from Dutch practice in the funding of collective actions. She stressed the role of self-regulation and soft law in the area of third party litigation funding. Thomas Kohlmeier responded to her discussion points from the perspective of the funding industry.

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Report Procedural Fund for Collective Actions

On request of the Ministry of Justice, Xandra kramer conducted a study on a procedural fund for collective actions, together with Jos Hoevenaars (Council for the Judiciary/Erasmus University Rotterdam), and Ianika Tzankova and Karlijn van Doorn (Tilburg University).

We carried out research to map developments in collective actions, did quantitative research on WAMCA cases and qualitative research on the funding of collective actions, including on developments in the market and regulation of third party litigation funding in the Netherlands and several other countries. Noteworthy is that all claims for damages so far rely on third party funding. The key question we looked into is to what extent a revolving litigation fund could provide a solution to bottlenecks in the funding of collective actions and how such a procedural fund could be designed. Considering the relatively small number of cases for damages that have been brought under the WAMCA so far and uncertainties in legal practice and regulation, coupled with the complexities to set up such a fund, we conclude that the introduction of a revolving litigation fund seems premature. We make a number of suggestions for further research. The report is available here.
We are preparing an English version of the report to be published by Eleven International Publishing - coming soon!

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150th Anniversary Institut de Droit International - session in Angers

Being elected as a Member to the Institut de Droit International in 2021, Xandra Kramer participated at the bi-annual session of the IDI in Angers from 27 August till 3 September. After impressing opening speeches by among others president mr. Emmanuel Macron and SG of the United Nations mr. Antonio Gutteres, sessions on various topics of international law were discussed. She also in the 6th Commission on Municipal Law before International Courts and Tribunals discussing an interesting draft report on the topic by Hans van Houtte and Burkhard Hess.

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Visiting Researcher Mykolas Kirkutis from Lithuania

From September till December 2023, we host Mykolas Kirkutis as a visiting researcher at our team and Erasmus School of Law. Mykolas is a lecturer and PhD student at Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania) and a judge assistant at Supreme Court of Lithuania. He is working on his PhD thesis (Problems of compatibility between public policy as a non-recognition clause in cross-border civil cases and the effectiveness of the right to a fair trial) and has an LLM in law (Vilnius University, Lithuania).

Mykolas reported: “I came to Erasmus University Rotterdam for a 3-month traineeship under the Erasmus+ programme. Halfway through my traineeship, I can safely say that it was an excellent choice of traineeship place. The biggest benefit of this internship is the access to the Sanders Law Library in Rotterdam and the Peace Palace Library in the Hague, which allowed me to enrich my thesis. During the internship I also have great opportunity to discuss my ideas with one of the top experts in the field of Private International Law – prof. Xandra Kramer. As well as I am
happy to have the opportunity to gain experience from my team mates from Erasmus University Rotterdam.”

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Research stay Eduardo Silva de Freitas at Max Planck

Between February 1 and April 30, 2023, Eduardo Silva de Freitas conducted a research residency at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European, and Regulatory Procedural Law, generously supported by NWO and Research Luxembourg. During his tenure at the institute, Eduardo delved into his research on litigation crowdfunding. Additionally, he participated in prestigious academic events, including the Comparative Procedural Law and Justice conference and the Forum on the Procedural Law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, further enriching his expertise and fostering meaningful connections within the legal community.

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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

Conference_Programme_2023_(1).pdf (euciviljustice.eu)

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Research stay Adrian Cordina at UCL

Between April 1 and June 30 2023, supported by NWO, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus+ and Erasmus Trustfonds Hermes Kring Londen, Adrian Cordina went on a research stay at UCL Laws. During his time at UCL Laws, he continued his research on third-party litigation funding in Europe, with a particular emphasis on the jurisdiction of England and Wales, under the supervision of Dr. John Sorabji (UCL) and Masood Ahmed (Leicester). Adrian took the opportunity to carry out qualitative empirical research in the form of interviews with key industry stakeholders and experts. He also discussed his research with peers at a PhD Work in Progress Forum at UCL Laws, benefitting
from constructive feedback and criticism. Moreover, Adrian attended lectures and seminars of interest and expanded his network in the vibrant and global city of London.

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Workshop Promises and Pitfalls of Collective Redress in the EU

On 12 May 2023, the team organised a workshop for the Ius Commune Annual Conference, dedicated to Promises and Pitfalls of Collective Redress in the EU.

The workshop, chaired by Prof. Remco van Rhee, examined the challenges of implementing Directive (EU) 2020/1828 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers (RAD) in the Member States, as well as cross-border aspects and developments in the funding of collective actions. Speakers included Xandra Kramer, Carlota Ucin, Eduardo Silva de Freitas, Adriani Dori, Adrian Cordina and Jacob van der Tang.

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Save the date: Conference Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe

The team of the Vici project Affordable Access to Justice at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University (Rotterdam), is organising a Conference on Sustaining Access to Justice in Europe: Developments in Costs and Funding on 19 and 20 October 2023 at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

The conference will spotlight papers, discussions, research presentations and a keynote on various aspects relating to the establishment of sustainable access to justice in Europe, including litigation costs and funding, third-party funding and litigation crowdfunding, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), public interest litigation, collective redress, and entrepreneurial lawyering.

See a call for abstracts here.

Confirmed keynote speakers are Rachael Mulheron (Queen Mary University London) and Andreas Stein (European Commission, DG Just, head of unit). More details on the program and registration will follow soon!

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Publication book Delivering Justice A Holistic and Multidisciplinary Approach

Xandra Kramer co-edited a the book Delivering Justice: A Holistic and Multidisciplinary Approach, Liber Amicorum in Honour of Christopher Hodges (Hart Publishing 2022), together with Stefaan Voet, Lorenz Kodderitzsch, Magdalena Tulibacka and Burkhard Hess. The book contains 23 chapters dedicated to the key topics Prof. Hodges has worked on, including collective redress, consumer dispute resolution, court reform and new technologies and ethical business regulation. The book was presented to Christopher Hodges OBE at the ADR Conference at Oxford University on 9-10 November 2022.

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Third-Party Funding: Trends, Developments and the Future

On 7 December 2022 (10-13 hrs) the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University (Rotterdam), organised a fruitful online research seminar ‘Third Party Funding: Trends, Developments and the Future.’

The seminar included two presentations on two of the articles in the recently published special issue of Erasmus Law Review, edited by Vici members Professor Xandra Kramer (Erasmus School of Law) and Associate Professor Masood Ahmed (University of Leicester, UK) on Global Developments and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice. Dr David Capper (Queen’s University, Belfast) and Professor Michale Legg (UNSW, Sydney) presented their respective papers on third party funding in Australia and Ireland.

This seminar kicked off with the launch of the new book Frontiers in Civil Justice - Privatisation, Monetisation and Digitisation (Elgar 2022); an edited collection of essays from the ERC project Building EU Civil Justice. The editors, Xandra Kramer, Jos Hoevenaars, Betül Kas and Erlis Themeli introduced the book and posed questions on the questions on the main themes of the book to Prof. Stefaan Voet (Leuven University).

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Training Developed by Carlota Ucín

Carlota Ucín has developed a training site for disseminating her work on public interest litigation, human rights and argumentative theory. The purpose of this project is to be able to transfer this knowledge and help practitioners and judges to better legitimate their actions by supporting their claims and decisions from a human rights perspective.

Therefore, the site has two main sections: a blog and a training platform where courses online will be delivered. The first online activity was the presentation of her book (Juicio a la desigualdad. La defensa de los derechos sociales a través del proceso. Inequality on trial. The defence of social rights through the process, Marcial Pons, Madrid, 2021).

Although the site is for now only available in Spanish it may also be translated into English in the near future.

For visiting the site or getting to know more about it, you can follow this link.

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Visting Researcher Jose Caro Catalan

We had the pleasure to host Dr. Jose Caro Catalan of Universidad de Cádiz as a visiting researcher from 20 June till 20 September 2022. Jose reports:

“In the summer of 2022, I carried out a research stay at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, under the supervision of Professor Kramer, who integrated me into her research group. I did this research stay just after defending my doctoral thesis in Spain, with the idea of exploring new research topics related to the efficiency of civil justice. Specifically, during those months I had the opportunity to learn more about the phenomenon of judicial specialization through the example of international commercial court. Furthermore, the possibility of participating in the group’s internal seminars allowed me to stay up to date with new topics and reflect on the challenges facing civil justice in the European Union. It was a very enriching experience, not only because of the excellent research resources available but, above all, because of the excellent researchers who are part of the group”.

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Out Now: Frontiers in Civil Justice

We are happy and proud that our book Frontiers in Civil Justice: Privatisation, Monetisation and Digitisation (eds. Xandra Kramer, Jos Hoevenaars, Betül Kas and Erlis Themeli) has been published by Elgar. It is a volume evolving from the ERC project Building EU Civil Justice, and contains excellent chapters by many colleagues we have worked with in the past years.

The book studies three interrelated frontiers in civil justice from a European and national perspectives, combining theory with policy and insights from practice: the interplay between private and public justice, the digitization of justice, and litigation funding. These current topics are viewed against the backdrop of the requirements of effective access to justice and the overall goal of establishing a sustainable civil justice system in Europe.

The combined works take on a pan-European perspective and zoom in on several European jurisdictions, thereby providing a holistic exploration of current civil justice debates and frontiers. The book includes chapters dedicated to the interaction between public and private justice, the digitisation of both private dispute resolution and court litigation, including the rapid development and use of advanced forms of Artificial Intelligence, and the funding of justice, especially collective actions and settlements by means of private funding and common funds.

The book can be ordered here. The first Introductory chapter is open access available on the EE website.

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Participation to Seminar in Barcelona

Carlota Ucín was invited to participate in a Seminar organised at the University of Barcelona on the topic: Consumer rights and housing, financing and dispute resolution. Her talk ‘Las formas del litigio de interés público y la tutela de los consumidores’ (The shapes of public interest litigation and the effective protection of consumers), focused on the characteristics of public interest litigation in the Global South, the reasons that can explain its evolution and the shapes it adopted in the Argentinean experience. She proposed the importance of applying the ‘public interest approach’ in order to facilitate access to justice of consumers in general and in the cases of housing claims in particular. This debate became particularly timely due to the discussion in Spain of a draft regulation related to the improvement of efficiency in civil procedures.

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New European Law Institute (ELI) project on third party funding of litigation

Our Vici member Adriani Dori will participate in a new project under the auspices of the European Law Institute (ELI) on “Third Party Funding of Litigation” (TPLF). The two-year-long project has been recently approved by the ELI Council. It will be conducted by three reporters (Professor Susanne Augenhofer, Ms Justice Dame Sara Cockerill, and Professor Henrik Rothe) with the support of an International Advisory Committee. The project’s main output will be the development of a set of principles (potentially supplemented by checklists) to identify issues to be considered when entering into a TPLF agreement. Adriani will participate as a project member (together with Mr Joseph Rich). The final outcome is expected in September 2024. More information, as well as regular updates, can be found on the ELI webpage.

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Erasmus Law Review Issue on Global Developments and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice

We are happy to announce the publication of the Erasmus Law Review Special Issue on Global Developments and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice (also reported here). This Special Issue contains three contributions from our team members alongside an editorial note by Masood Ahmed and Xandra Kramer.

Firstly, Adriani Dori inquired whether the fact-finding process that supports the preparation of the EU Justice Scoreboard, as well as the data this document displays, conveys reliable and comparable information. Adrian Cordina critically examines, including from a law-and-economics perspective, the main sources of concern leading to the skepticism shown towards TPF in Europe and how the regulatory frameworks of England and Wales, the Netherlands, and Germany in Europe, and at the European Union level, the Representative Actions Directive address such concerns. Finally, in view of the UKSC’s finding of non-infringement of Article 6 ECHR in Coventry v. Lawrence [2015] 50, Eduardo Silva de Freitas argued that a more holistic view of the procedural guarantees provided for by Article 6 ECHR is called for to properly assess its infringement, considering mainly the principle of equality of arms.

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Commercializing Litigation and the Dutch NCC

On 14 July 2022, Xandra Kramer participated in a very well attended webinar on International Commercial courts, organized by the univerties of Bologna, Milan and Verona. Her talk ‘Commercializing Litigation: The Case of the Netherlands Commercial Court’, focused on the reasons why the NCC has been established, international justice competition, the key features of the NCC and the future prospects. While so far the number of cases the NCC has dealt with is limited, change takes time and the quality, efficiency and international outreach of the NCC are promising.

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Conference: Courts as an Arena of Societal Change

Carlota Ucín has participated in the Conference: ‘Courts as an Arena for Societal Change’ that took place on the 8 and 9 July 2022, at Leiden Law School. In her presentation, she developed some ideas from her recent book: Inequality on trials. The defence of social rights through the judicial process (in Spanish). In particular, she focused on the importance of introducing some reforms within the judicial process to legitimate the role of courts in public interest litigation. She presented the idea of the ‘deliberative legitimacy of courts’ that implies the possibility of opening up the dialogue between interested and affected groups through public hearings as well as enforcing the duty of justification of the judges by applying a scheme of argumentation that includes a more sophisticated proportionality test.

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Professional Ethics of Lawyers and Judges

On 10 and 11 July, Jos Hoevenaars participated as a speaker at the meeting of the RCSL Working Group of the Comparative Study of the Legal Professions (WGLP) which was held from 10 till 12 July in Coimbra, Portugal. The working group brought together eminent researchers working on various aspects surrounding professional ethics of both judges and lawyers. Unable to travel to Portugal Jos joined the panel on legal ethics remotely to present his research on the impact of the (increasing) possibility for parties to litigate without the guidance of a legal aid provider on Dutch civil procedure in practice. Through interviews with Dutch subdistrict judges he analyses the extent to which self-representation influences the role of the judge. The research shows how judges seek a balance between their role as neutral arbitrator in a dispute and a more active role necessitated by parties not being represented by a legal aid provider. In doing so, they navigate between process and content, and must constantly balance the trade-off between acting more actively to gather sufficient information for a substantive handling and assessment of the case, on the one hand, and safeguarding the limits of party autonomy and their own (perceived) neutrality, on the other.

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Closure of the seminar series “Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice”

Thanks to all the participants and speakers for making the seminar series “Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice” possible! In the course of seven months, we had over 500 registrations for seven seminars with industry and academic experts.

Your support was essential to expand our mission to provide the community with awareness on current issues in litigation costs and funding. We hope to see you again at one of our upcoming workshops, seminars, and conferences!

Sincerely,

VICI project team

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Visiting Researcher Tommassion Ferrario

We had the pleasure to host Tommaso Ferrario of the University of Ferrara, Italy at our Building European Civil Justice research group at Erasmus School of Law from 1 March till 30 June 2022. His account of the research stay:

“During my PhD program, I had the pleasure to spend four months (from March to June 2022) as a visiting researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam under Professor Xandra Kramer. It was a very fruitful period as I found the best conditions for finalizing my research on the topic of the ascertainment and application of foreign law in European private international law. In particular, I experienced an excellent working environment where I could have access to the University library as well as daily discussions about my thesis with Professor Kramer and other colleagues from all over the world. Moreover, not only I was allowed to attend the scientific seminars organized by the department and by Professor Kramer’s research group but also to give a presentation of my research. For all these reasons I consider my research stay at Erasmus University Rotterdam a very formative experience that optimized my educational path and gave a precious contribution to my future career”.

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Presentation in Public Interest Clinic, University of Alicante

Carlota Ucin was kindly invited to give a presentation at the Public Interest Clinic at the University of Alicante in Spain. She presented there the shapes that Public Interest Litigation can adopt and the way this can serve access to justice of human rights. This is related to the topic of her recent book: Juicio a la desigualdad, (Inequality on trials, Marcial Pons, 2021).

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Seminar Series Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice

On 22 June 2022 a hybrid seminar dedicated to Regulation of Third Party Funding in the EU will take place at Erasmus University Rotterdam/online.

This seminar is the last one in a seminar series on Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice organised by the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law. The series kicked off in December 2021 with a general session that addressed several topics of access to justice and costs and funding, including collectiveredress and costs reforms, and a Law & Economics perspective. The second seminar in January 2022 was dedicated to legal mobilisation in the EU. The third one in February addressed the impact of Public Interest Litigation on access to justice, and the fourth one in March litigation funding in Europe from a market perspective. The April seminar zoomed in on austerity policies and litigation costs reforms, and the May session was dedicated to funding and costs of ADR.

UPCOMING EVENT:

Wednesday, 22 June 2022 (14-18 CEST)

For in person participation register here (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

For online participation register here.

PROGRAM

13.30 Registration

14.00 Opening and Welcoming Remarks

Professor Xandra Kramer (Erasmus University Rotterdam/Utrecht University, the Netherlands)

14.10-15.45 Keynote Speech

Professor Geert Van Calster (KU Leuven, Belgium)

Session I – Current Status and the Need for Further Regulation

Chair: Professor Xandra Kramer

Stakeholder roundtable:

• Paulien van der Grinten (Senior Legislative Lawyer, Ministry of Justice and Security, the Netherlands)

• Johan Skog (Partner, Kapatens, Sweden)

• David Greene (Partner, Edwin Coe, England)

Discussant: Quirijn Bongaerts (Partner, Birkway, The Netherlands)

15:45 – 16.15 Coffee Break

16.15 – 18.00 Session II – Modes and Levels of Regulation

Chair: Dr. Eva Storskrubb (Uppsala University, Sweden; Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Panel:

• Kai Zenner (European Parliament, Head of Office (MEP Axel Voss))

• Tets Ishikawa (Managing Director, LionFish Litigation Finance Ltd, England)

• Professor Victoria Sahani (Arizona State University, USA)

• Professor Albert Henke (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy)

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Fundamental rights in private international law

Xandra Kramer gave a keynote at a young scholars conference on fundamental rights in private international law in Leuven on 16 June 2022. The conference focused developments in The Netherlands, Belgium and South Africa. Her lecture discussed the development of private international law as value neutral system towards a determinant of values and strategic instrument in the EU context. She also explored the rise of strategic litigation in climate cases and consumer cases as well as the proposed anti-SLAPPs to both enforce and secure rights, and how private international law rules (should) foster these.

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Presentation about Costs and Third-Party Funding at IE University (Madrid)

On 28 April 2022, Eva Storskrubb participated as a speaker and panelist together with Prof. Paul Oberhammer (University of Vienna) and Prof. Albert Henke (Universitá di Milano Statale) in the 10th and final session of the online seminar series “Exploring the ELI-Unidroit European Rules of Civil Procedure” organized by Prof. Marco de Benito at IE University (Madrid). The theme of the session was “Costs and Third-Party Funding”, and the panel was moderated by Carlota Ucín postdoctoral researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam (member of the Vici project).

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Commercial courts and EU Justice Scoreboard in Dubrovnik

After three years the annual Public Private Justice course and conference in Dubrovnik resumed in live format (23-27 May 2022). The overriding theme was: The End of Civil Procedure? Challenges of Automatization, Specialization and Privatization. Xandra Kramer gave a presentation entitled ‘Commercializing Litigation: from court specialization to commodification – the case of international business courts’. She discussed how the establishment of international commercial courts - in Europe in part as a response to Brexit - have contributed to commodification of litigation, which has both positive and negative aspects. Adriani Dori prestented on ‘The Role of the EU in the Transformations of EU National Civil Justice Systems’, critically discussing -based on collected empirical data - how the EU Justice scoreboard assesses the civil justice systems, and which recommendations resulted from this assessment.

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PILAR event on ethical dilemmas in qualitative research

On May 16th, Jos was asked to join an event organized by the PhD organization of Erasmus School of Law within the series ‘coffee with an expert’. The event focused on ethical dilemmas in empirical research. Jos was asked, based on his ample experience in qualitative research methodology, to act as a panelist and to discuss and debate ethical dilemmas that may arise when conduction empirical data collection. The lively discussion that followed presentations on data management and storage, focused in on ethical dilemmas regarding access to respondents, relationship with participants, and informed consent.

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Book launch ‘Researching the Court of Justice’

On May 11th Jos joined other authors for the launch of the long-awaited book ‘Researching the European Court of Justice: Methodological Shifts and Law’s Embeddedness’, edited by Edited by Mikael Rask Madsen (University of Copenhagen) Fernanda Nicola (American University, Washington DC) and Antoine Vauchez (Université Paris 1-Sorbonne). This new book, presented by the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for International Courts(iCourts) at the university of Copenhagen, takes stock of the on-going ‘methodological turn’ in the field of EU law scholarship. Introducing a new generation of scholars of the European Court of Justice from law, history, sociology, political science and linguistics, the book provides a set of novel interdisciplinary research strategies and empirical materials for the study of the Court of Justice of the European Union. In his contribution Jos describes the use of a bottom-up approach in studying the dynamics behind litigation before the CJEU by drawing on research conducted among litigating parties that saw their cases referred to Luxembourg through a reference for a preliminary ruling.

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Seminar Series Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice

From December 2021 to June 2022, the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law is organising an online seminar series dedicated to the Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice.

The series “Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice” kicked off in December 2021 with a general session that addressed several topics of access to justice and costs and funding, including collective redress and costs reforms, and a Law & Economics perspective. The second seminar in January 2022 was dedicated to legal mobilisation in the EU. The third one in February addressed the impact of Public Interest Litigation on access to justice, and the fourth one in March litigation funding in Europe from a market perspective. The remaining seminars will zoom in on austerity policies and litigation costs reforms, funding and costs of ADR in civil justice, and EU regulation of Third Party Funding.

You can register for (one or more of) the seminars here.

UPCOMING EVENT:

Wednesday, 25 May 2022 (15-17 CEST)

Funding and Costs of ADR in the Civil Justice System

To attend the online event, please register here.

Program:

15.45 - 15.00: Registration / Zoom Connection

15.00 - 15.15: Masood Ahmed (Leicester Law School)

Welcome Address and Introduction

15.15 – 15.35: Sue Prince (University of Exeter)

Building bridges and fences: Mapping routes to resolving disputes using technology

15.35 - 15.55: Nicolas Kyriakides (University of Nicosia)

Affordability of ADR in Cyprus in light of new Civil Procedure Rules

15.55 – 16.10: Break

16.10 - 16.30: Dorcas Quek Anderson (Singapore Management University)

Counting the Cost of Enlarging the Role of ADR in Funding Civil Justice

16.30 - 17.00: Discussion & Conclusion of the Seminar

More information and registration here.

The Speakers:

Sue Prince is the Head of the Law School at the University of Exeter. Her research interests focus on access to justice in the civil courts looking particularly at the role of court-based mediation. She has conducted a number of empirical studies of the impact of mediation in the courts for bodies such as the Civil Justice Council and the Ministry of Justice.

Nicolas Kyriakides is a lawyer, academic and lobbyist. He is a graduate of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, he holds postgraduate degrees from UCL and NYU and a PhD (DPhil) from the University of Oxford. He has also been a visiting researcher at Harvard University.

Dorcas Quek Anderson is Associate Dean (Student, Staff & Alumni Affairs) and an Assistant Professor of Law in the Singapore Management University’s Yong Pung How School of Law. As a practising mediator and a former District Judge in the State Courts, Dorcas’ research is drawn from her experience and explores the interaction between dispute resolution developments and access to justice. Her research has been published in leading international journals including the Civil Justice Quarterly and the Harvard Negotiation Law Review.

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Seminar Series Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice - Fifth Seminar

The team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law is organizing an online seminar series dedicated to Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice. The events of the series run from December 2021 to June 2022.

The 5th seminar of the series took place on 20 April 2022, 14-16 CET and was dedicated to Austerity policies and litigation costs reforms. The EU economic crises of the last decades and the ensuing austerity policies deeply impacted justice budgets in many EU jurisdictions and triggered justice reforms, particularly in the area of litigation costs. The seminar has offered the opportunity of reflecting on the implications of litigation costs reforms on access to justice and procedural efficiency. The speakers’ presentations and the following debate have highlighted a number of perspectives, which also reflected the diverse national backgrounds of the participants.

Panagiotis Perakis (CCBE Vice President) focused on the case of Greece. Using empirical data, he addressed the question of to what extent costs of litigation increased in Greece. He also explored in more detail how Greek justice reform policies have affected access to justice for the citizens and the efficiency of national courts.

Paula Costa e Silva (Lisbon University) provided a legal and economic analysis of the reforms implemented in Portugal before, during and after the financial crisis. Her presentation addressed, among others, the practical consequences for the users and providers of justice services and the need for the design of robust evidence-based justice policies.

Fernando Gascón Inchausti (Complutense University of Madrid) presented the case of Spain. His presentation focused on the instrumental use of costs as a lever for adjusting the volume of litigation in Spain also in light of mass consumer litigation and recent CJEU jurisprudence on unfair contractual terms.

The seminar was introduced and moderated by Adriani Dori, Academic Researcher of the Vici project at Erasmus School of Law.

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Data on the Books and Law in Action, Girona

In April 2022, the II International Conference of Young Researchers (Jornada Internacional Jóvenes investigadores – GINVESTIGA, 26-28 April) took place at the University of Girona. More than 40 researchers discussed “Efficiency, Modernization and Acceleration of the Judicial Process”. Adriani Dori gave a presentation on “Data on the Books and Law in Action”, assessing the actual impact of EU soft-law instruments on national justice systems. Her presentation focused on how quantitative and qualitative statistical and empirical judicial data contribute to determining EU Justice policy, how they transform into top-down policy guidelines for national justice systems, and how the Member States respond to such policy guidelines.

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Presentation meeting Law Society England & Wales

Xandra Kramer was kindly invited to give a presentation at a meeting of the Private International Law working group of the Law Society of England and Wales on 11 April 2022. The purpose was to provide an update on EU developments in the area of private international law, including on the interaction between England and Wales and the EU post Brexit. She discussed the enforcement of judgments and jurisdictional implications, including the Hague Choice of Court Convention, the (problematic) possible accession of the UK to the Lugano Convention, and the new Hague Judgment Convention. She also briefly addressed the establishment of international commercial courts in several Member States, including the Netherlands, the new Representative Action Directive as well as the ongoing evaluation of the Brussels I regulation and the ADR and ODR instruments.

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Seminar Series Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice - Fourth Seminar

From December 2021 – June 2022, the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law organizes an online seminar series dedicated to Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice.

The fourth seminar was dedicated to Litigation Funding in Europe: A Market Perspective and took place on 23 March 2022, 15-17 CET. The funding of the costs of litigation, an essential dimension of accessing civil justice, was discussed. Among the topics presented were the current litigation funding landscape in Europe with particular attention to Third Party Funding (TPF) and collective redress. The pricing considerations for TPF and the ethical implications of TPF in international arbitration were also discussed.

Stefaan Voet (KU Leuven University) gave a brief overview of the current litigation funding landscape in Europe, with particular attention to third party litigation funding and collective redress and current and possible forthcoming legislation on TPF.

Thomas Kohlmeier (Nivalion AG) compared different concepts to provide access to justice such as legal aid, legal expenses insurance and TPF, with a special focus with a special focus on the pricing considerations for TPF.

Yihua Chen (Erasmus School of Law) discussed whether the existing international arbitration regime can adequately address the ethical implications of third-party funders for the professional conduct of arbitrators and lawyers representing clients. He focussed on the ethical implications for the independence and impartiality of arbitrators, as well as for the lawyers’ independence and their professional obligations to funded parties and arbitral tribunals.

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New Position: Executive Project Manager WODC research project third party litigation funding

After finalizing most of the research within the ERC project, Jos has moved on to a new position as executive project manager and senior researcher within a new research project. This research project, commissioned by the WODC and led by Prof. Xandra Kramer and Prof. Ianika Tzankova (Tilburg University), aims to investigate the usefulness and necessity of a revolving litigation fund for mass claims in the Dutch legal system. The study will map developments in collective redress, and existing means to finance collective actions, including legal aid, insurance, and third party litigation funding, and identify problems in funding. It will investigate whether creating a (public) fund for collective redress is desirable, also taking into account such funds in other jurisdictions (among others Canada and Israel), and if so, how such a fund can be set up.In addition to his role as a senior researcher, Jos acts as executive project manager.

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Seminar on cost and funding of collective actions in the Netherlands

On Thursday March 24th Xandra Kramer and Jos Hoevenaars attended a seminar organised in conjunction with claim organisation ClaimShare in Amsterdam. This seminar brought together professionals in the field collective actions, including lawyers, so-called claim foundations, as well as commercial litigation funders. Among others there was a presentation by Jeremy Lieberman (Pomerantz LLP) on experiences in the US. Xandra gave a presentation on the current state of litigation funding in the Netherlands and introduced the WODC research that she and Jos are conducting for the WODC on the need for a (public) fund for collective redress (see this earlier post). As such the seminar also served as the informal kick-off for that research effort.

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Research on Procedural fund for Ministry of Justice

From March till November 2022, we will be conducting a research on a procedural fund for collective redress, commissioned by the Research and Documentation Center (WODC) and the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security. The study will map developments in collective redress, and existing means to finance collective actions, including legal aid, insurance, and third party litigation funding, and identify problems in funding. It will investigate whether creating a (public) fund for collective redress is desirable, also taking into account such funds in other jurisdictions (among others Canada and Israel), and if so, how such a fund can be set up.

The study is conducted in collaboration with Tilburg University (prof. Ianika Tzankova) and will be carried out primarily by Xandra Kramer and Jos Hoevenaars, with the support of the Vici group.

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Speaker at the International Congress on Consumer’s Judicial Protection – Sevilla, Spain

Carlota Ucín was invited as a speaker at the International Congress on Consumers’ judicial protection (Congreso Internacional “La tutela de consumidores y usuarios. El marco europeo, su aplicación en el ordenamiento español y los sistemas de actuación y protección en Andalucía”) which took place in Sevilla the 15 and 16 of March 2022. She there presented the forms of Public Interest Litigation and their role in providing access to justice to consumers. In particular, she focused on the Argentinean experience in structural reform litigation.

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Seminar Series Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice- Third Seminar

From December 2021 – June 2022, the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law is organing an online seminar series dedicated to Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice.

The third took place on 16 February 2022 and was dedicated to the impact of public interest litigation on access to justice: An empirical perspective. Public Interest litigation can be a way of providing access to justice to certain causes related to human rights and other fundamental claims. The climate change litigation movement shows how can human rights approach provide a strong basis for this kind of collective claims.This emerging contitutional practice can indeed cooperate in access to justice in this broad sense but may also prove to be effective in terms of its impact. Bringing tocourt some strategic cases and building up a case around some public goods may provide greater results than individual claims. But this impact has to be conceptualised and then measured.From this perspective the speakers presented their research.

Event program:

14.45 – 15.00: Connecting on Zoom.

15.00 – 15.15: Carlota Ucín
(Erasmus Law School), Welcoming words and introduction

15.15 – 15.40: Prof. Dr Maurice Sunkin* (University of Essex),

15.45 – 16.10: Prof. Dr Siri Gloppen** (University of Bergen),

16.15 – 16.40: Prof Dr. LaDawn Haglund ***(Arizona State University)

16.45 – 17.00: Q & A

*Prof. Dr Maurice Sunkin is Professor of Public Law and Socio-Legal Studies in the School of Law at the University of Essex. He is an Associate Member of Landmark Chambers, London; a member of the Administrative Justice Council; a member of the expert group advising the government on its evaluation of the current major programme of court and tribunal reform; a member of the Eastern Region’s Advisory Group on Counter Terrorism; and a member of the Civil Justice Council’s sub committee on Pre Action Protocols in Judicial Review.

** Prof. Dr Siri Gloppen is Professor and Director of the Centre on Law & Social Transformation in the Department of Administration and Organization Theory at Bergen University. Her main contribution to the field of socio-legal studies is the conceptualisation, theorisation and empirical study of the use of law and legal institutions at a political tool and strategy for social change – how this plays out in different contexts, is engaged by diverse actors, and in various policy fields and institutional arenas.

***Dr LaDawn Haglund is associate professor and Faculty Lead of Justice & Social Inquiry at Arizona State University, as well as President of ASU’s Tempe Academic Assembly and Senior Global Futures Scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. Her work is situated at the intersection of political economy, human rights, and sustainability, with a focus on justice and social change. Her current empirical research examines legal, institutional, and political dimensions of social rights in the context of capitalism, urbanization, and global environmental change.

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Seminar Series Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice - Second Seminar

From December 2021 – June 2022, the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law organizes an online seminar series dedicated to Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice.

The second seminar was dedicated to Legal Mobilization: A European Perspective, and took place on 19 January 2022, 15-17 CET. This discussed recent scholarship on legal mobilization at the Pan-European level in the context of EU Migration Law, EU Data Protection Law, and European Human Rights Law.

Lisa Harms (University of Münster) presented on Human rights advocacy and the transnational regulation of religion: The case of Muslim legal mobilization. She focused on the case of Muslim legal mobilization at the ECtHR and present quantitative data collected regarding the legal mobilization of religious groups at the ECtHR as well as in-depth interviews conducted with litigants and their supporters.

Virginia Passalacqua (Utrecht University) presented on Legal mobilization via preliminary references: the case of migrant rights. She discussed how the EU Court of Justice became a central venue for migrant rights defenders that increasingly rely on the preliminary reference procedure to challenge national anti-migration policies. However, legal mobilization varies greatly among Member States: some countries make multiple references and others make none. Virginia Passalacqua’s presentation will shed light on the factors that facilitate or hamper legal mobilization for migrant rights before the EU Court.

Sanja Badanjak (University of Edinburgh)prestented on Constitutional review as an opportunity structure for legal mobilization in the EU. She addressed how constitutional complaints offer routes through which citizens’ mobilization in defence of their rights may be realized. In the EU, this can be used to voice opposition and change EU law via the preliminary reference procedure. However, this also requires further consideration of cross-country variation in citizens’ access to constitutional litigation.

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Presentation at SIDE about Paper on Third Party Litigation Funding

On the 17th of December, 2021, Adrian Cordina participated as a speaker at the 17th annual conference of the Italian Society of Law and Economics (SIDE) which was held from December 15 to 17 at the University of Trento. He presented his paper titled ‘Is it all that Fishy? A Critical Review of the Concerns surrounding Third Party Litigation Funding’. The theme of the session was ‘Litigation process and legal profession’ and was moderated by Evangelia Nissioti (University of Hamburg).

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Seminar Series Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice - First Seminar

From December 2021 – June 2022, the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law organizes an online seminar series dedicated to Trends and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice.

First session: Access to Justice and Costs and Funding of Civil Litigation

On 15 December 2021, the series kicked off with a general session that will address several topics of access to justice and costs and funding, including collective redress and costs reforms, and presented a present a Law & Economics perspective.This first session was combined with the launch of the book New Pathways to Civil Justice in Europe (Springer, 2021) that resulted from an earlier conference organized by the ERC project team.

Judith Resnik (Yale University) who authored the concluding chapter (available open access), among others, discussed the question from which perspective to understand the civil legal system so as to make judgments about whether a system is just or unjust.

Ianika Tzankova (Tilburg University) focused on access to justice against the background of trends in global dispute resolution where big players are shaping the future, and the funding of litigation.

John Sorabji (University College London) zoomed in on developments in costs and funding of civil justice, including the move to recoverable fees, the upcoming review of the Jackson costs reform and funding of representative actions.

Louis Visscher (Erasmus School of Law) presented a Law & Economics perspective on costs and funding, including rational apathy, risk aversion and agency problems.

The seminar was introduced and moderated by Xandra Kramer, PI of the Vici and ERC projects at Erasmus School of Law.

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Presentation at the San Isidro Bar Association (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Carlota Ucín gave a presentation on: “The forms of Public Interest litigation” in the Law Conference held on November 17 and organized by the San Isidro Bar Association, under the slogan “The new process.” She presented the experience of public interest litigation in the Argentinean practice and the role of collective procedures in this field.

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Presentation at the Serra Dominguez Foundation Memorial

Carlota Ucín participated in the event organized by Serra Dominguez Foundation (Spain) where she developed some of the ideas of her book (Juicio a la desigualdad, Marcial Pons, 2021). In particular, she focused on the proportionality test within the Public Interest Litigation cases showing how the role of judges in these cases could be legitimated in an argumentative way. The event took place in Valencia the 11 and 12 November 2021.

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Book presentation: Juicio a la desigualdad (Inequality on Trials)

Carlota Ucín was invited to present some of the ideas of her book (Juicio a la desigualdad, Marcial Pons, 2021) at Salamanca School of Law (Spain).The topic of the meeting was related to the debate on the possible public policies to eradicate any forms of inequality of women in political, economic and social participation. She then spoke about the importance of Public Interest Litigation to enforce access to justice and help to remove these inequalities.

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Paper: About the imprisonment conditions in Buenos Aires Province

On 13 October 2021, Revista Jurisprudencia Argentina has published Carlota Ucin’s paper about the imprisonment conditions in Buenos Aires.

Tutela judicial efectiva en litigios estructurales. A propósito de las condiciones de detención en la Provincia de Buenos Aires (Effective judicial protection in structural claims. About the imprisonment conditions in Buenos Aires Province) in: Revista Jurisprudencia Argentina, JA 2021 - IV, fasc. 3, 13/10/2021, pp 3-10.

Abstract

The Argentinean Supreme Court of Justice has recently issued a new ruling in the Verbitsky case related to the imprisonment conditions. The decision, which I will refer to as Verbitsky II, tackles some relevant issues that I would like to highlight and analyze in this paper. These points are the effectiveness of the judicial protection of persons that are deprived of their liberty, the notion of procedural efficacy and the efficiency of the process in general and of habeas corpus in particular. The richness of the case allows me to rely on it to exemplify some particularities of the litigation that, raised in the Public Interest, seek to introduce structural reform of a collective situation that is considered unconstitutional or detrimental to human rights recognized in the Constitution and international conventions.

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Milieudefensie vs. Shell. O sobre las nuevas formas de la justicia (Milieudefensie vs. Shell. Or on

In this paper, Carlota Ucín analyzes the recent case “Milieudefensie vs. Shell”. The decision adopted in the first instance condemned the company to achieve a net reduction of at least 45% of emissions by 2030, taking as a reference the values of 2019. This particular form of Public Interest Litigation, oriented to mitigate climate change, imposes new ways of understanding law and jurisdiction. In this sense, the ruling highlights an expansive interpretation of the content of human rights, used in the case as an interpretive key for the precision of state and private obligations.

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Book New Pathways to Civil Justice is out

Our book New pathways to civil justice in Europe has just been published by Springer. It results from one of the international conferences organized by our ERC group (’Challenge accepted!’) and this one was particularly memorable. The book focuses on innovative pathways to civil justice with a view to improving access to justice. It encompasses the four key topics of the project: use of Artificial Intelligence and its interaction with judicial systems; ADR and ODR tracks in privatising justice systems; the effects of increased self-representation on access to justice; and court specialization and the establishment of commercial courts to counter the trend of vanishing court trials. Top academics and experts from Europe, the US and Canada address these topics in a critical and multidisciplinary manner, combining legal, socio-legal and empirical insights. More information and sales available at the Springer website. The Introductory chapter by the editors (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and the final chapter by Judith Resnik (Yale University) are available for free download.

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Judicial Training in Helsinki

Xandra Kramer gave lectures and led a workshop for EU court staff on European Cross-Border Civil Procedures in Helsinki on 22 and 23 September 2021. She discussed the Brussels I-bis Regulation, the European Enforcement Order, the Order for Payment and the Small Claims procedures. This course is part of a programme on Court Staff Training in the
EU, coordinated by the European Law Academy (Trier), in which she has also been involved to prepare training materials for courses throughout the EU. In this course 23 judges and other judicial staff members from 9 different EU Member States took place. It was the first one that could take place live since the Spring of
2020.

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Book: Juicio a la desigualdad (Inequality on Trials)

Carlota Ucín has recently published this book, that is part of her PhD thesis. As she refers, Human Rights represent —today more than ever— a shared morality that guides us towards subsistence as cohesive communities. From this perspective, Public Interest Litigation becomes fundamental as a way of achieving the enforcement of these rights and to some extent, social change. This practice took shape in most of the countries of the so-called Global South after the latest constitutional reforms. It then emerged there as a body of lawsuits oriented by the Public Interest and tending to give effect to the social rights promised in the Constitutions but violated in practice. However, the phenomenon is not exclusive to these countries, and we are beginning to see signs of this in the so-called climate change crisis litigation.

The first debates in the legal theory field were linked to the possibility of ensuring the judicial enforceability of these rights and to the role of the courts in this new scenario. The dialectic was oriented, centrally, towards the demonstration of the analogies that exist between civil and political rights, on the one hand, and social rights on the other. In practice, the lack of specific regulations replicated —at its turn— the existence of social inequalities. First because of the limited access to justice and then because of the overuse of the procedural instruments specific to individual rights.

JUICIO A LA DESIGUALDAD suggests an alternative view, which at the same time serves as a guide for the new forms of litigation emerging. For this, the author analyses the theoretical and institutional difficulties derived from social rights and suggests the elaboration of categories according to their speciality. She develops her argument in two parts, the first specifies the reasons why social rights should not be totally equated with civil and political rights, showing, instead, the convenience of a specific theoretical and procedural treatment. The second part is based on the experience of Public Interest Litigation and sets out the guidelines that will serve for the development of a collective procedural paradigm —with participatory and deliberative bases— that allows ensuring the effective protection of these rights.

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ELI Council Election 2021

Xandra Kramer was elected to the European Law Institute Council by the Membership at the 2021 Annual conference. Her four-year term (which may be renewed once) started on 8 September 2021. Xandra was invited to become a member of the Association that preceded the formal establishment of the ELI and has been an active member of the ELI since 2012. She was a involved in the ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure that were adopted in 2020 from the inception of the project in 2013, as a co-reporter of the overarching Structure group and reporter of the Provisional measures working group (see also our blogpost on conflictoflaws.net). In 2020, she also wrote the response to the public consultation on the European Enforcement Order Regulation on the
request of ELI, and she serves as an observer for the ELI at the Best Practices for Effective Enforcement Project of Unidroit.

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IDI Member Election 2021

Xandra Kramer was elected as a Member of the Institut de Droit International, IDI (Institute of International Law) at the bi-annual meeting in August 2021 (see also here). The IDI was founded in 1873 as an academic association that aims to improve the advancement of international law and peace. In 1904, the Insititute received the Nobel Peace Prize for improving international arbitration as a way of peaceful settlement of conflicts. The IDI has a counselling role in the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The IDI has 130 members, all prominent academics and scholars from the field of international private law or public law from across the world. Xandra has been selected based on her expertise in the area of private international law.

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Conference International Commercial Courts in Europe and Asia

The ERC team is organizing, together with BIICL and UNIL the conference Taking Stock: International Commercial Courts in Europe and Asia. The conference will take place on 17 September, in a hybrid format (London - limited places - and online). You can register via the BICCL website.

In recent years, International Commercial Courts have been established across Europe and in Asia. Now that these courts have been dealing with international cases for a while, it is time to take stock and look at various questions: the reasons behind the recent proliferation of these courts and their international features in terms of court language, judicial composition, parties and disputes; the perspectives of court users and judges on key features of these courts, their suitability for specific kinds of disputes and the handling of international commercial disputes in practice; the interface between International Commercial Courts and arbitration, in particular in jurisdictions with well-developed arbitration centres; and the ever more important question how these courts deal with global challenges such as Covid 19, Digitalisation & AI.

More information and the program available here.

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Seminar series EU Civil Justice

The ERC Building EUCivil Justice team organized a series of six seminars between May and July2021. The series covered a variety of topics in the field of European civil justice and zoom in on the key topics our group has been working on over the past four years. These include the privatization and digitalization of civil justice, cross-border judicial co-operation, international business courts, and self-representation. Each session brought together invited speakers and our own researchers. The webinars gathered between 25 to 85 participants from all over the world per session and resulted in lively and fruitful debates, despite the online format.

The first seminar, organized by Betül Kas, was dedicated to The Role of Out-of-Court Justice in the European Enforcement Regime, discussing among others the role of Article 47 TFEU and the process of obtaining remedies in the Volkswagen diesel case. During the second seminar, organised by Erlis Themeli, the discussion zoomed in on Modernising European Cross-Border Judicial Collaboration, including an ongoing digitization project of the European Commission, the Dutch participation in e-Codex and digitisation in the context of uniform European procedures. The third seminar was organised by Emma van Gelder, and was dedicated to Digital Constitutionalism and European Digital Policies and discussed remedies in the context of European policies, the role of private platforms and judicial review. The fourth seminar, organized by Jos Hoevenaars, dealt with the topic Representing Future Generations: Private Law aspects of Climate Change Litigation. Making the shift from self-representation under the ERC project to the representation of present and future generations it discussed different aspects of recent climate change litigation, with a focus on the recent Dutch Shell case. The fifth seminar by Georgia Antonopoulou was dedicated to the Arbitralization of Courts, and discussed how recently established international business courts copy features of arbitration and what the limits are. The sixth and last seminar entitled European Civil Justice in Transition: Past, Present & Future, moderated by Xandra Kramer and Alexandre Biard concluded the series. The speakers addressed the upcoming revision of the Brussels I-bis Regulation, digitisation and the development of integrated dispute resolution, trust and quality in civil justice and the future of civil justice.

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Representing Future Generations - 4th EU Civil Justice Seminar Series

The Fourth seminar of the EU Civil Justice Seminar Series took place on Thursday July 1st. The seminar focused on the private law aspects of climate litigation. Striking a bridge between his current work on (self)representation in civil justice and past work on strategic litigation and the representation of public interest through law, Jos Hoevenaars brought together a panel to discuss the most recent developments in climate change litigation.

In that context, the recent Milieudefensie/Shell decision of the district court of The Hague signifies a move in climate change litigation from targeting mainly the responsibilities of governments in curtailing the effects of climate change, like in the already famous Urgenda case, to suing corporations, and using the courts to force multinationals to adjust their practices. The panel of speakers discussed the implications the Shell decisions at the crossroads of strategic litigation, collective representation, civil tort law and human rights in climate litigation.

Chantal Mak, professor of Professor of Private law at the Amsterdam Centre for Transformative Private Law (ACT) analyzed the Shell decisions and highlighted the human rights angle of climate change litigation. Professor Geert van Calster, Head of the department of European and international law at the University of Leuven, gave an overview of the private international law aspects of climate change litigation. And finally, Sanne Biesmans, PhD candidate at the Business Law Institute of the Radboud University Nijmegen, analysed the Shell decision from a corporate liability perspective and sketched a future outlook for corporations and how this decision may affect their practices going forward.

The seminar was very well-attended, with some 65 participants joining for the subsequent discussions.

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Legal training for lawyers in Latin America

Carlota Ucín gave lectures at the Public Lawyers training body in Argentina (ECAE) during April and May 2021. She developed some topics on argumentative theory and law practice. In this course, lawyers that work on the defence of the State participated as part of their training program. She also gave some lectures on the postgraduate course on argumentative theory in Paraguay, Argentina and Colombia, in August and November and December respectively.

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European digital constitutionalism and remedies - 3rd EU Civil Justice Seminar Series

The third seminar of the EU Civil Justice Seminar Series took place on Friday 4th of June 2021. The Seminar touched upon the topic of European digital constitutionalism and remedies. In the past two decades, the European Union has developed a framework of European digital constitutionalism. This framework was prompted as a reaction towards the predominance of digital private norm activities which were accelerating within the EU. Within this EU framework, there are various remedies and dispute resolution mechanisms available. These remedies are not just public remedies, but also bottom-up approaches to enforcement. For example, the Facebook Oversight Board presents a form of private adjudication. The European Commission proposal for a Digital Services Act (DSA) acknowledges the need to regulate such online platforms, for instance it requires online platforms to be transparent about why they take particular decisions.

Giovanni De Gregorio, who is a postdoc at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, kicked of the seminar with providing the introduction of the topic European digital constitutionalism. He explained how the remedies within the framework are shaped and why these remedies have been made available. He noted the shift which is experienced from digital liberalism to digital constitutionalism.

The second speaker, Catalina Goanta, who is an assistant professor at Maastricht University, touched upon the platform powers. She explained that platforms are offering much more functions than just content, such as commercial functions of social commerce. She gave the example of Instagram, through which people can buy shoes. Catalina stressed the importance of asking the question on how to answer to this increasing power of these platforms. In this regard, Catalina addressed the potential of the DSA.

The third speaker was Clara Iglesias Keller, who is a postdoc research fellow at the Leibniz Institute for Media research and at WBZ Berlin Social Sciences Centre. She touched upon the topic of judicial review and constitutionalism. She highlighted the complexity of drawing up regulation for the Internet and also raised concerns of how claims can be redressed, as she pointed out that some claims are not brought to court.

A vivid discussion followed raising numerous insights and food for future thought.

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Digitising cross-border judicial cooperation in the EU – 2nd EU Civil Justice Seminar

The second EU Civil Justice seminar took place on Friday, 21 May 2021. On Focus during this seminar were the attempts of the European Union to digitise cross-border judicial cooperation. The aim of this initiative is to reduce the hurdles for such cooperation and eliminate the need for paper. Digital technologies are mature and safe enough to exchange sensitive documents between Member States institutions. Both citizens and public institutions will benefit from the speed and low costs of these solution. Considering this perspective, the European Commission is considering different routes which the speakers of the seminar discussed. Gösta Petri from the DG Justice explained the background and some of the implications that the digitisation of EU cross-border collaboration implies. He stressed the importance of digitisation and the need to evaluate already exiting tools. The next speaker, Sandra Taal from the Ministry of Justice of the Netherlands, provided an overview of eCodex, a cross-border communication infrastructure for the exchange of documents in Europe. eCodex has proven to be a very useful and reliable tool which explains why the EU plans to invest more on it. Taal agrees with Petri about the need to integrate eCodex with any other possible solution that Commission’s consultation will produce. The third speaker, Alina Ontanu from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, provided an extensive and in-depth overview of several European attempt to digitise cross-border judicial collaboration. While these experiences have had different degrees of success, they should be considered in their entirety and better orchestrated to achieve their goal. Erlis Themeli, who served as host and moderator, used the development of the voting procedure for the Eurovision Song Contest (which was taking place in Rotterdam during that same week) to make parallels with the need for more digitisation in Europe. This was the spark that ignited the discussion about the importance of cross-border digitisation, which turned out to be both inspiring and insightful for the speakers and the audience alike.

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Out-of-court justice in the European Enforcement Landscape – 1st EU Civil Justice Seminar

On Thursday 6 May, our seminar series on ‘EU Civil Justice’ kicked off with a general introduction to the series by Xandra Kramer. The first two-hour seminar dealt with the role of out-of-court justice in the European enforcement landscape. Taking a holistic perspective, our invited speaker Fabrizio Cafaggi (Judge at the Italian Council of State, former professor at the EUI and the University of Trento) talked about the role of Article 47 EUCFR in shaping the interaction between different enforcement processes. Specifically, Cafaggi explained how Article 47 EUCFR has institutional implications for the balance between individual and collective redress and for the relationship between judicial and administrative enforcement as well as ADR. The Court of Justice of the European Union has played a key role in employing the fundamental right to an effective remedy to give shape to their complementarity. Reference points are the Court’s rulings in Cases C-73/16 - Puškár, C-317/08 - Alassini, C-75/16 - Menini and Rampanelli and C-381/14 - Sales Sinués. According to Cafaggi, the case-law shows that Article 47 generally favors choice between different processes. However, mandatory sequences that oblige to either exhaust administrative remedies or attempt ADR before accessing judicial remedies are not excluded as long as certain conditions are met. Betül Kas (post-doctoral researcher, Erasmus University Rotterdam) zoomed in on the relationship between ADR and court proceedings in collective disputes by discussing the highly contentious collective settlement in the Volkswagen litigation in Germany. Kas reconstructed the procedural and practical circumstances that lead the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband - vzbv) to settle outside the procedural scope of the German model case procedure (Musterfeststellungsklage). While this move withdrew the settlement from the safeguards installed within the procedure and any judicial oversight, it enhanced the choice of individual consumers, which could either accept Volkswagen’s settlement offer or pursue individual judicial proceedings benefitting from the suspension of the limitation period. The topic of collective settlements raises interesting questions about safeguarding Article 47 in opt-in/opt-out mechanisms and as to the degree of judicial involvement required in collective settlements. The discussion raised further interesting question of a principal nature, such as the meaning of ‘privatization’ and ‘effectiveness’ in EU civil justice.

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Cuestiones probatorias en el Litigio de Interés Público. Sobre la prueba de la violación de los dere

In this paper, Carlota Ucín argues that the claims that seek to enforce social rights may find it difficult to prove the facts that support them. This can be explained by the indeterminacy of the normative statements and by the asymmetry in access to public information. As she claims, presumptions can alleviate evidentiary difficulties, with a clear benefit on access to justice for these cases.

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Presentation LSA Annual Meeting 2021

At the Annual meeting of the Law and Society Association (LSA) Jos Hoevenaars presented a paper, co-written with Betül Kas and Erlis Themeli on the impact of trends of digitalisation, increasing self-representation and privatisation of justice on the function of civil courts and the day-to-day practise of civil judges. The panel, chaired by prof. Tomohiko Maeda, brought together scholars from Japan, Chili and the Netherlands and focused on topics such as the attitudes towards the use of AI in courts AI (Shozo Ota), the relationship between income and access to justice (Myrte Hoekstra), innovative neuro-legal research into the ‘legal mind’ (Takeshi Asamizuya) and the Chilean judiciary’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic (Macarena Vargas).

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Teaching at HSE Moscow

Xandra Kramer taught a course on Global and European Civil Procedure at the HSE University in Moscow in collaboration with Georgia Antonopoulou. It adressed developments in civil procedure in Europe and at the global level and discussed rules on private international law, in particular international jurisdiction, choice of court and recognition and enforcement. One lecture dedicated to International Commercial Courts was taught by Georgia.

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Presentation at the Federal University of Esparto Santo, Brazil

Carlota Ucín was invited to participate in a webinar organized by the Research group Fundamentos do Processo Civil Contemporâneo (FPCC) coordinated by Professor Dr Hermes Zaneti Jr. at the Federal University of Espirito Santo, Brazil (UFES). In her presentation, she outlined the main features of Public Interest Litigation and how it may have a great impact on promoting access to justice of fundamental rights. In particular, she highlighted that the shift from public to private funding of civil litigation could be benefited from the Public Interest approach, which is more concentrated in raising certain claims that could imply lower cost with greater benefits. This can be explained in part because these claims may provoke the change of a bureaucratic practice or they could protect some public goods. The exchange was very enriching for both sides since Brazil has great experience in this kind of litigation and must face great dilemmas related to costs and access to justice.

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Chair Law section Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

In 2019 Xandra Kramer was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). As of April 2021 she also chairs the law scholars section which is part of the Behavioural Sciences, Social Sciences and Law Domain, in which she also serves as a committee member. The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1808 as an advisory body to the Dutch Government and still fulfils this role of advising on subjects of science and scholarship.

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Conference: Digital and Intelligent Europe: EU Citizens and the Challenges of New Technologies

On 1 and 2 April 2020, ERC project members Erlis Themeli and Emma van Gelder co-organized the conference ‘Digital and Intelligent Europe: EU Citizens and the Challenges of New Technologies for Civil Justice’, together with Anna van Duin and Rachel Rietveld (University of Amsterdam). The two-day conference revolved around EU citizens in their search for justice in an increasingly digitized world. Digital technologies can reduce barriers to access to justice by offering more affordable, swifter and simpler solutions. Key notes were delivered by Natali Helberger and Tania Sourdin and the three panels evolved around the topics of digital and intelligent out of court procedure, digital and intelligent justice solutions for supporting the court, and digital and intelligent courts. The conference brought together academics and practitioners from around the world and resulted in vivid discussions and a lot of food for thought. We will prepare a full conference report in the upcoming days.

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US-Europe conference lecture collectivizing litigation

Xandra Kramer presented at a conference organized by Emory University Law School and Oxford University on developments in civil justice in the US and Europe, Qua Vadis civil justice? The first part of this three-part Zoom event on Trends in Civil Procedure took place on 26 March 2021. One of the statements was that European civil justice policy, contrary to the US, while also under pressure from the efficiency advocates, continues to focus on encouraging litigation. Xandra focused on collectivizing litigation in Europe and the Netherlands in particular. She discussed trends and developments in European civil justice, where in recent years collective redress and digitisation have been key issues and in the Netherlands where the establishment of the Netherlands Commercial Court in 2019 and the completion of the collective redress system in 2020 are highlights. Despite the emphasis on collective redress in recent years, there are no indications that litigation has become more important. In the European context, enhancing ADR by putting quality standards into place and the setting up the ODR platform are equally important.

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Comparative Procedure project MPI

In 2020, the Comparative Procedural Law and Justice project (CPLJ) of the Max Planck Institute on Procedural law in Luxembourg, funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund, kicked off. This is a global project in which more than one hundred scholars participate. It aims a comprehensive study of comparative civil procedural law and civil dispute resolution and to understanding the rules in their cultural context. The work is divided into different sections, including on technology, ADR and collective redress and will result in the publication of a Compendium on Comparative Civil Justice. Alexandre Biard participates in the team on collective redress. Xandra Kramer participates in the team working on special forms of procedure. On 26 February 2021, she presented the work of this group so far at one of the seminars of the CPLJ project.

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Online courts during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Netherlands: Conference presentation

On 17-18 February 2021, the Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law organised the conference Digital Governance in the Times of Covid-19. The Conference focused on changes brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and how many aspects of our (legal) life turned from analogue to digital. During the second day, Erlis Themeli presented in the Online Courts During Covid-19 and Beyond panel, together with Professor Schmitz (University of Missouri School of Law) and Adv. Naqui (PEW Charitable Trusts). Erlis spoke on how in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic Dutch courts went digital. He considered this event both a cure and a disease. A disease because it threatened the right to access to justice for many; but also a cure, because it showed that courts can be dynamic and use technology to improve access to justice for many. Two other panels in the conference focused on Algorithmic Regulation and Digital Policy Tools During Covid-19 and Zoom Parliaments During Covid-19 respectively. Two keynote speeches from Prof. Frank Pasquale (Brooklyn Law School) and Prof. Richard Susskind (Oxford) provided a fertile ground for discussion and interesting ideas for further research.

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Georgia and Erlis invited to lecture at the Private Law Master programme

On 10 February 2021, Georgia and Erlis were invited as guest lectures at the Private Law Master programme of the Erasmus School of Law. This was a special master class where students follow advanced level lectures from experts in the field. They were asked to lecture about international commercial courts, which is a topic of growing importance. Georgia and Erlis consider that the competition of civil justice systems and dispute resolution methods incites international commercial courts to market their features in order to raise awareness on their recent establishment and attract disputes. This development raises many questions about the development of these courts in particular and public litigation in general. Before the lecture, students were asked to reflect on this topic and discuss with Georgia and Erlis. The class was successful in drawing up the complex nature and activities of international commercial courts, but it also produced food for thoughts for both students and lecturers.

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The Netherlands as the market for mass litigation?

On 5 February 2021, Xandra Kramer participated in the online seminar ‘The Netherlands: a forum conveniens for collective redress?’, jointly organized by Maastricht University, Tilburg University, the Univerisity of Amsterdam, in collaboration with the Open University. The seminar was dedicated to the interantionational attractiveness of the Dutch courts and Dutch remedies, the interaction between EU law and Dutch collective actions and the market for mass litigation. Together with Alexander Layton, QC, she discussed in how far the position of The Netherlands is reinforced in a fragmented international legal landscape, also resulting from Brexit.

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Evaluation European Enforcement Order

The European Order for Payment Regulation became applicable in 2005 and aims to smoothen cross-border enforcement of debts. After the partial abolition of exequatur in the enforcement rules on parental responsibility in the Brussels II-bis Regulation, it was the first broad instrument to abolish intermediate proceedings for enforcement in civil and commercial matters as far is it concerns an uncontested claim. For that purpose it introduces a number of minimum norms of civil procedure, in particular on the service of documents and information. This instrument was followed by a number of other instruments, including the European order for payment procedure, the Small Claims procedure and the Account preservation order, that advanced the harmonisation of civil procedure and the abolition of exequatur. With the Brussels I-bis Regulation becoming applicable in 2015, the abolition of exequatur with the aim to simplify cross-border enforcement reached its momentum.

Fifteen years after the European Enforcement Order Regulation became applicable it was high time that the Regulation be evaluated. Xandra Kramer acted as national reporter for the Netherlands. In addition, she wrote a response to the public consultation on the request of the European Law Institute (here) and participated to an opinion of the EAPIL (here).

Apart from evaluating the overall functioning in the Member States, the question is also whether it is still a useful instrument considering the enactment of new instruments and the abolition of exequatur under Brussels I-bis. While it is still used in the Netherlands and part of the other Member States, the undesired multiplicity and incoherence of instruments in the area of European civil procedure coupled with the inherent complexity of the present Regulation cast doubt. While it has served its purpose in enhancing access to justice its value in the present European civil justice system is very limited.

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Legal training EU judges

Xandra Kramer gave a lecture and led a workhop on the Cross-border enforcement of debts for EU judges on 29 January 2021. This was part of a programme on Court Staff Training in the EU, coordinated by the European Law Academy (Trier) and in collaboration with the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN), for which she prepared course materials that are used across the EU. The present training was part of a 4 days training on European Cross-border civil procedures and legal English for Court Staff. While many of the trainings within this programme, planned for 2020, had been postponed, this training which should have taken place in Brussels moved online.

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Mini webinar International Commercial Courts and Jurisdiction

On 8 January 2021 we hosted a mini webinar on International Commercial Courts and Jurisdiction, as part of our ERC Building EU Civil Justice project.

In recent years international commercial courts have been established in a significantnumber of countries in Europe and across the world. An important aspect in attracting international commercial cases is how international jurisdiction rules are framed. ERC project member Georgia Antonopoulou is writing her PhD research on international commercial courts and presented on how a wide casting of the jurisdictional net influences the caseload of international commercial courts. Discussant was Caroline Lasthaus, PhD candidate at Bucerius Law School, Hamburg, who also conducts research on international commercial courts.

The presentations were very interesting and appreciated by the around 45 participants in the webinar and led to fruitful discussions.

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Launch EE Companion to the Hague Conference

The launch of the Elgar Companion to the Hague Conference on Private International Law took place on 15 December 2020. The book, edited by Thomas John, Rishi Gulati and Ben Köhler, was launched by Christophe Bernasconi, Secretary General of the HCCH, and was followed by a conversation and Q&A on a key
theme that emerged in the Companion: the importance of private international law to providing access to justice. Xandra Kramer kicked off by stressing the importance of the various instruments of the Hague Conference for increasing access to justice at the global level and the crucial rule digitisation plays in enhancing judicial cooperation. Her talk was followed by a practical perspective by Justin Gleeson SC (Barrister and Arbitrator, Banco Chambers, Sydney). The conversation was kindly led by Matthew Neuhaus, Australian ambassor to the Netherlands.

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Presentation Creation ELI-Unidroit Model rules

Xandra Kramer participated in a webinar within the Civil Procedure Series organized by IE Law School, Madrid. The series focuses on the ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure. Xandra discussed the creation, general principles and future of the Model Rules, Emmanuel Jeuland focused on language and translation issues and Fernando Gascon on comparative aspects of the project. The webinar was hosted by Marco de Benito.

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Successful Conference Frontiers in Civil Justice

The Conference Frontiers in Civil Justice organized by our ERC team on 16-17 November 2020 was a success and - despite having to move online - it was a very lively event. Impressive keynotes were given by speeches by Hazel Genn (UCL) and Hrvoje Grubisic (European Commission). Four great panels with high level, insightful and thought-provoking presentations.

Of course we had hoped to welcome our speakers and adience in Rotterdam or at least have a blended event, but it worked out very well online. Close to 200 people from all over the world had registered, some of whom accompanied us throughout the event; many others picking and choosing the panels and talks they were most interested in. The parallel chat discussions were extensive and very lively, and our chairs supported by chat moderators from our team managed to highlight the key issues that were discussed further in the panel and with ‘live’ questions from the audience.

We are grateful to all the speakers, chairs, tech support and the organizing team (Betül Kas and Ilja Tillema). We are also proud of accomplishing this despite having to work under more challenging circumstances in these strange times, as everyone around the globe.

A brief discussion of the conference presentations has been prepared by Jos and Betül and is available at conflictoflaws.net.

Stay safe and healthy!

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Conference: Frontiers in Civil Justice

16 and 17 November 2020 at Erasmus University Rotterdam

Civil justice remains in constant flux. The design of a sustainable civil justice system for the 21st century is continuously discussed both at national and international level. Particularly at international level, several soft law instruments have been adopted in recent years such as the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the ELI/UNIDROIT Model European Rules of Civil Procedure and the ELI statement on the relationship between formal and informal justice.

The conference addresses four key issues in civil justice, which require a deeper and renewed reflection in light of their contribution of facilitating access to justice. Those trends concern the shaping of the interaction between formal and informal justice, the digitalization of consumer dispute resolution, the collectivizing and monetizing of civil litigation and efforts of bringing justice closer to citizens. The conference will bring together academics, policymakers, practitioners and representatives of civil society to critically reflect on the opportunities and possible drawbacks ensuing from these paramount developments.

You can find the program and register here!

This conference is organised by Erasmus School of Law at Rotterdam University under the ERC project ‘Building EU Civil Justice’ (www.euciviljustice.eu).

The conference was set up as a blended event, with speakers at the site and some presenting online, but will be fully online in view of the Covid-19 developments.
For more information, do not hesitate to contact us at kas@law.eur.nl (Betül).

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Webinar ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure

On 6 November 2020, the ERC group organized a small scale webinar on the occasion of adoption of the ELI-Unidroit Model Rules and the upcoming kick-off of the Vici project related to our ERC project on Affordable Access to Justice: The ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure: soft law shaping the future of European Civil Procedure?

Xandra Kramer presented on the creation, main principles and future prospects of the Model Rules. Eva Storskrubb (University of Uppsala) discussed the Cost rules, in the drafting of which she was closely involved being one of the co-reporters. Masood Ahmed (University of Leicester) viewed the rules on cost, management and ADR from the English perspective. Despite the small set up and short notice, over 60 people participated in the webinar and the discussion.

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Presentation on European procedures at ERA Conference

At an online conference on European civil procedure organized by the European Law Academy in Trier on 26 October 2020, Xandra Kramer presented on on ‘European civil procedure 4.0? The European Account Preservation Order & Payment Order at the Court of Justice’. She showed that considering the case law and legal practice these European procedures still operate in the shadow of the Brussels I-bis Regulation and national civil procedure. Discussing the first case of the European Court of Justice on the European Account Preservation Order and case law on the European Payment Order it is clear that the Court maneouvers it’s way into the national intricasies when implementing the European regulations on civil procedure.

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Studium Generale Interview on Affordabe Justice

Xandra Kramer was interviewed by Geert Maarse at Talkshow Studio Erasmus on 20 October 2020. She was asked to participate on the ocassion of obtaining a Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council. The interview was about the costs litigation and the importance of keeping access to justice affordable. The interview was held in Dutch and is available here.

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Presentation on the ELI-Unidroit Model Rules and future perspectives

On 25 September 2020, Xandra Kramer presented on the ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure: perspectives for national and European legislators at the closing workshop on the occasion of the UNIDROIT Governing Council meeting.
While the Rules cannot be copied into a national or supranational legal order one-on-one as they are not created as an all encompassing code, they have a number of interesting features that can serve as a model for national and European legislators.

The ELI-Unidroit Model European Rules of Civil Procedure were adopted by the European Law Institute and Unidroit in 2020. Xandra Kramer was involved in this large scale project from the inception at an exploratory workshop in Vienna in October 2013. She was a member and reporter of the working group on provisional and protective measures, and together with Loic Cadiet (Paris 1, Sorbonne) acted as co-reporter of the overarching Structure group, charged with with coordinating the work of the different working groups, filling the gaps, and securing a coherent set of model rules to be used by European and national legislators in particular. See also our blogpost on the adoption of these Model Rules on conflictoflaws.net.

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Covid-19 and Social Science Research

Together with Andrea Evers (professor of Health Psychology, Leiden University, Delft and Erasmus University), Xandra Kramer moderated a webinar on research practices during and after Covid-19 in the social sciences and humanities. The webinar took place on 10 September and was organised by the Dutch Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which Xandra is a member.

Panellists discussed the influence of Covid-19 on their research and research practices in general. It led to vivid and very interesting dicussions. While research practices and in particular international collaborations and field research is challenged, the pandemic and the opening up of more intensive online collaborations also creates opportunities. In particular for younger researchers and research communities in countries that are less versed in online communication, however, the pandemic has created uncertainties that need attention. The expectation is that the pandemic will continue to be topic of research in many areas of social sciences and will have a long-lasting effect on research practices.

These effects are also experienced by our research team. While it gave some food for thought (see also our blogposts on access to justice in times of corona and on collective redress and this webinar), it also hampers field research, research stays abroad, daily interaction between our team members as well as the participation in and organisation of live events that are more than the content of presentations only.

The recordings of the webinar (mostly English spoken, but parts in Dutch) are available here.

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Digital workshop European Civil Studies

Xandra Kramer participated as a commentator in a digital workshop organized by the Swedish Network for European Legal studies and Uppsala University on 20 August 2020. Xandra discussed a paper presented by Eva Storskrubb on the European Acccount Preservation Order.

The paper focused on the question whether the Regulation needs improvement. Xandra pointed to a number of issues that makes the implementation of this Regulation in the diverse legal systems of attachment and enforcement in the Member States particularly difficult. These include the intertwinement with substantive law, debt and insolvency law and the involvement of third parties. Recent case law and empirical research in a number of Member States shows that so far this Regulation is not used often in practice. It seems too early to draw firm conclusions as to whether the Regulation needs amendment or whether further harmonisation is required.

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Seminar International Judicial Cooperation Brazil

On 17 July 2020, Xandra Kramer participated, on invitation byPaula Sarno, in an Instagram Live event organized as part of the Projeto mulheres no processo by the the Brazilian Institute of Procedural Law (IBDP). Her talk evolved around international judicial cooperation and business litigation, in particular the trend of establishing international business courts and the importance of the new The Hague Judgment Convention for international dispute resolution. Her counterpart was Thiago Borges and the presentation took the form of a lively conversation, only hampered somewhat by the technique.

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Conference and Call for papers Frontiers in Civil Justice

Our conference Frontiers in Civil Justice will be held on 16-17 November 2020. We will address four key issues in civil justice requiring a deeper and renewed reflection in light of their contribution of facilitating access to justice. These are the shaping of the interaction between formal and informal justice, the digitalization of consumer dispute resolution (ODR), the collectivizing and monetizing of civil litigation and efforts of bringing justice closer to citizens. The conference will bring together academics, policymakers, practitioners and representatives of civil society to critically reflect on the opportunities and possible drawbacks ensuing from these paramount developments. The outline of the conference, including confirmed keynote speakers, is avaible here. Further details will be made available soon. Call for Papers! For the last part of the conference we welcome abstracts on the topic ‘Innovations in Civil Justice - Bringing Justice Closer to Citizens’. Please send in your abstract of max. 500 words before 31 July. Further details can be found here. We will have great speakers and look forward to exciting debates. We hope to see you in Rotterdam or online in case meeting in real is not possible due to the Covid-19 crisis.

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Recruiting five researchers on Affordable access to justice

We are recruiting five researchers (two postdocs, two PhDs and one parttime associate/endowed/full professor) for the new research project Affordable Access to Justice: towards sustainable cost and funding mechanisms for civil litigation in Europe.

This five year project is funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and led by Prof. Xandra Kramer. The project will assess new pathways to civil justice funding and cost schemes, with a view to developing a balanced financing system securing access to justice in Europe. It builds onto the ongoing ERC consolidator project Building EU Civil Justice: challenges of procedural innovations – bridging access to justice.

Please contact Xandra Kramer (kramer@law.eur.nl) for more information on the project, and see Vici vacancies 2020 for the vacancy descriptions, application requirements and procedure. You can apply here till 17 July 2020.

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Conference on Covid-19 and civil justice

On the 15th of May, Xandra Kramer participated in an online conference dedicated to Covid-related litigation and judicial and legislative responses. The conference was organised with Catherine Piché (University of Montréal) and 18 speakers from different countries around the globe participated in this online event. Xandra discussed the closing down of the courts in the Netherlands on the 17th of March resulting from the lock-down. After this date, only urgent and written proceedings continued. A new temporary act was put in place to regulate distance hearings and other temporary measures concerning the operation of the courts and the online submission of documents. As of 11th of May, the courts re-opened, however with limitations to physical oral hearings and exclusion of the general public. She also discussed, following an interview with the president of the Rotterdam district court, how the corona crisis has led to boosting technology and innovation and a pragmatic approach of Dutch courts in this respect.

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Mass litigation in times of corona

Jos Hoevenaars and Xandra Kramer published a blogpost on conflictoflaws.net on mass litigation in times of corona and developments in the Netherlands. It discusses the rise of litigation and in particular mass litigation following from the corona crisis. Around the world, cases are being filed relating to health and economic effects and labour conditions. The new Dutch act that became applicable on the 1st of January 2020, the Collective Redress of Mass Damages Act (WAMCA), may be a useful tool to address the litigation following the corona crisis.

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Access to justice in times of corona

Digital court room Rotterdam (rechtspraak.nl)

While our focus is on keeping ourselves and others healthy and safe and we share the great concerns and grief caused by the corona virus, our team tries to keep the spirit up and is working at a reduced pace from home. Our PhD researcher Georgia had to return earlier from her research stay in Singapore – but we are happy to have her back safe and sound – and many of our planned activities have been cancelled. Luckily, some meetings and events can still go through online and we hope that this virus that has been so devastating for many people can be controlled soon and we can begin to pick up our normal life routines and work activities in a world that has been shaken.

The disruption of society has naturally also affected our justice systems. In the Netherlands, the courts were closed on 17 March 2020, and only process designated urgent cases (including child protection cases, health and security related cases, insolvency cases, and certain criminal cases). A positive side effect is the rapid uptake of digitisation of justice. In the Netherlands, on 3 April 2020 a legislative proposal was put forward to enable more electronic communication and video calling to secure that the judiciary can keep functioning. We report more in detail on this in our blogpost on Conflictoflaws.net.

Stay safe and healthy!

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Interview Jos Hoevenaars in ‘Het Advocatenblad’

Jos Hoevenaars was interviewed for the Dutch magazine for the legal profession ‘Het Advocatenblad’ about his insight into the experiences of lawyers who find themselves litigating before the European Court of Justice after their case is referred though a reference for a preliminary ruling. In the interview (freely translated: ‘Court of Justice? Experience Needed!’) he discusses his empirical research among Dutch lawyers and paints a picture of generally overwhelmed professionals scrambling for assistance among EU law scholars, while making the best of their opportunity to plead before the ECJ, often in opposition to a group of well-trained EU law experts appearing on behalf of intervening Member States. His work on the reference procedure highlight the inequality in representation before the ECJ and its potential negative impact on the Court’s caselaw and its national consequences.

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Guest researcher Anna Wysocka-Bar from Poland

In February, we hosted Anna Wysocka-Bar as a guest researcher at our team and Erasmus School of Law. Anna is a lecturer at Jagiellonian University (Poland) and an academic coordinator of a Jean Monnet Module 2019-2022 on European private international law. She holds PhD degree (the thesis on party autonomy in international succession law was successfully defended at Jagiellonian University, Poland) and an LLM in law and technology (Ottawa University, Canada).

Anna reported: "I came to Rotterdam to kick-off my research on the interaction between EU private international law and unified transport law conventions. Within three weeks of my stay in the Netherlands, I profited greatly from the Sanders Law Library in Rotterdam and Peace Palace Library in the Hague, attended seminars and guest lectures, spotted best practices when observing how EU private international law is taught at Erasmus School of Law, and, last but not least, was given the opportunity to discuss my ideas with top experts from Erasmus University – the hub of international transport, trade and private international law in Europe. My stay in the Netherlands was possible thanks to the famous Dutch hospitality and a research grant from the Miniatura programme of the National Science Center (Poland)."

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Seminar with students from the Sigmund Freud University Vienna

On Friday 21 February 2020, the team of the ERC project Building EU Civil Justice organised a seminar on European Cross-Border Procedures. Guests of this seminar were nine students from the Sigmund Freud University Vienna. The aim of this event was to create an international outlet where students would discuss topics related to the theme of the seminar and receive feedback from senior academics.

Before joining the Seminar, the students prepared a presentation which they presented and discussed at the Austrian Ministry of Justice, EU institutions in Brussels and the Hague Conference on Private International Law. The Erasmus School of Law was the last stage of this trip and the Building EU Civil Justice team gladly accepted to discuss with the students.

The Seminar was opened by Prof. Xandra Kramer, the leader of Building EU Civil Justice, and Florian Heindler, assistant professor at the Sigmund Freud University who was accompanying the students. After these warm greetings, Alina Ontanu gave a short lecture on Access to Justice via e-Handling of Cross-border Procedures. Next, Felix Gruber, Sarah Kremser, and Mariella Sturz presented respectively their research on the amendment of the EU Evidence Regulation in the light of IT, the amendment of the EU Service Regulation in the light of IT, and the impact of the Hague Service Convention on Austria. Priskila Pratita Penasthika form the ESL commented on their presentation and gave some feedback.

Emma van Gelder started the second half of the seminar with a lecture on online dispute resolution in Europe. Her lecture was followed by the presentations of Stella Galehr, Tessa Grosz, and Tanja Pfleger who respectively presented on the liability of states and private entities in relation to the use of IT in international legal cooperation, non-discriminatory access to IT-based judicial infrastructure, and questions of data protection in judicial cooperation under the Hague Adults Convention. For this panel, Betul Kas served as discussant and moderator. In the last panel of this seminar, Julius Merhaut, Simon Kirschner, and Andrea Szell presented while Erlis Themeli provided feedback. The presentations of these students focused on iSupport status quo and further perspectives, possibilities and risks of IT for a uniform commercial register, and the EIO - The implementation of the Directive 2014/41/EU (Int adm law).

In the end, those attending the seminar joined a small reception where they expressed their gratitude for the organisation and in particular for Erlis and Florian who coordinated it. Considering the positive experience, the Austrian guests wish to see similar events more often in the future. The Building EU Civil Justice team is more than happy to host and help organising similar events in the future.

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e-Justice seminar with SFU Vienna

On 21 February 2020, Dr. Florian Heindler (Sigmund Freud University, Vienna) our team - with special thanks to Erlis Themeli - organized a small scale a seminar on e-justice at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Nine students from Vienna accompanied Dr. Heindler to learn abouy and give presentation on e-justice. Our univeristy was the last one in a series of visits, including to the European Commission and the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

The students presented their research on a wide variety of interesting topics on judicial cooperation and the use of IT, including on the Service and Evidence Regulations and Conventions, liablity in relation to the use of IT international legal cooperation, non-discriminatory access to IT-based judicial infrastructure, and data protection. Some of our ERC members and other staff members of our law school gave a presentation or acted as commentator to the students' presentations.

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