Civil litigation in a globalising world – an introduction -- Fundamental principles of civil procedure: order out of chaos -- Harmonisation of civil procedure: a historical and comparative perspective -- A Law and Economics view on harmonisation of procedural law -- Harmonisation of civil procedure – policy perspectives -- Harmonisation of civil procedure and the interaction with private international law -- Harmonisation of civil procedure and the interaction with substantive private law -- Procedural harmonisation in a European context -- Harmonised civil procedure in a world of structural divergences? Lessons learned from the CEPEJ evaluations -- United States – Harmonisation and Voluntarism: The role of elites in creating an influential national model, the Federal Rules of Civil -- Switzerland – between cosmopolitanism and parochialism in civil litigation -- Globalisation and Scottish Law -- A Dutch perspective on civil litigation and its harmonisation -- The German approach to the globalisation and harmonisation of civil procedure. Balancing national particularities and international open-mindedness -- Convergence of civil procedure systems in Europe. Comments from a Belgian perspective -- The French approach to the globalisation and harmonisation of civil procedure -- Romanian civil procedure. The reform cycles -- Closing comments: harmonisation or globalisation of civil procedure?.

This book is an important contribution to the discussion about globalisation of civil procedure. Globalisation of legal matters and the inherent necessity of having to litigate in foreign courts or to enforce judgments in other countries considerably complicate civil proceedings due to great differences in civil procedure. This may jeopardise access to justice. As a result, the debate on the need for the harmonisation of civil procedure becomes ever more prominent. This book discusses the globalisation and harmonisation of civil procedure from various angles, including fundamental (international) principles of civil justice, legal history, private international law, law and economics and (European) policy. It offers important theoretical and practical perspectives and is valuable reading for, amongst others, academic researchers, policy makers, judges, legal practitioners and court bailiffs.   Xandra E. Kramer is Professor of European Civil Procedure at the Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. C.H. (Remco) van Rhee is Professor of European Legal History and Comparative Civil Procedure at the Faculty of Law of the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands