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


Published: October 4, 2021
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.