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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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Published: February 22, 2021

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.