Quo Vadis Civil Justice? Filling the gaps in civil justice in the U.S. and Europe
Hosted by
Emory University School of Law
The University of Oxford’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Swiss Re Programme for Civil Justice Systems
Spring 2021 -- A Three-Part Zoom Event
26 March | 9:00 -12:00 (Eastern U.S.) | Panel 1: Current Tendencies in Civil Litigation |
30 April | 9:00 – 12:00 (Eastern U.S.) | Panel 2: American and European civil justice on the cutting edge of legal innovation – justice out of courts |
28 May | 9:00 – 12:30 (Eastern U.S.) | Panel 3: Rethinking and redesigning civil justice systems – what works and why? |
Civil justice globally is in a state of transition, reform and even crisis. This state of crisis, and a search for mechanisms to settle disputes, ‘right the wrongs’ and enforce the law efficiently, effectively and equitably, pre-dated the global pandemic. Currently, across Europe, in the U.S. and beyond, the pandemic places additional, very significant pressures on civil justice systems. In response to these challenges, both pre- and during the pandemic, policymakers, scholars, legal practitioners and businesses have been designing and testing a variety of reforms of existing systems, as well as new procedures, mechanisms and bodies aimed at providing civil justice. Reforms and innovations proliferate both within the in-court civil justice (litigation including individual and collective/class actions) and out-of-court mechanisms. When we contrast Europe and the United States, these reforms seem to be headed in very different directions. Do these different directions merely reflect the different starting points for the respective civil justice systems, or are there other factors at play?
The ‘Filling the Gaps’ series of Zoom events gathers lawmakers, policymakers, scholars, business representatives and legal practitioners who, in the span of three panel discussions, will offer insights into the seismic shift the contemporary civil justice systems in Europe and the U.S. are experiencing. They will reflect on the search for just, efficient and effective civil justice mechanisms, trace the trajectories of reforms, assess the reasons for differences in trajectories, and attempt to answer the perennial question: can we learn from one another?
See the event programme and abstracts; further details and registration are available on the event webpage.