This rise of a particular kind of European Union legislation known as the ‘optional instrument’ is a novel trend in the context of EU law, and one that until now has not been comprehensively mapped or explored. This study examines and discusses existing and proposed EU Optional Instruments (OIs) in different fields of European law, including company law, intellectual property law and procedural law (such as the European Company, the Community ...

Many contemporary jurisdictions have been revisiting the fundamental principles of their civil procedures, including the way in which evidence is introduced, collected and presented in court.

The story of collective redress in the European Union up to the present day may be qualified as a story of missed opportunities and small steps forward. The editors of the present volume hope that the future of collective redress in Europe will be brighter than the past. They hope that the volume will further the discussion on collective redress in Europe by providing the most up-to-date information in the field, and that this will lead to the...

Legal Aid in the Low Countries deals with the system of legal aid in Belgium and the Netherlands. Central questions in the book are whether the conditions for a sound legal aid system are met, especially in the fields of law that mainly concern the ‘have nots’; the main ethical considerations that legal aid providers have to take into account; and the alternatives for legal aid and complementary solutions to enhance access to justice.

Public confidence in the justice system depends on the belief that decisions made in the judicial processes are reasonably correct and accurate. This book focuses on the systems of appellate control of court judgments. The editors explore the relationship between the different approaches to appeals in national civil justice systems and their impact on the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the legal protection of individual rights.

Although the protection of individuals’ interests against administrative actions is still primarily the domain of the judiciary, most legal systems nowadays also assign this task to ombudsmen. This can potentially lead to conflicts between the two institutions and can affect their relations, and therefore needs coordination.

This study provides an overview of the existing acquis communautaire in property law, and presents a proposal for the future development of this field of law. It deals with the influence of the EU’s four freedoms on national property law and discusses whether or not the EU would have the competence to actively create property law, and the extent to which it has already done so.

In the pursuit of justice, truth always plays a prominent role. In most legal systems, elaborate rules on the taking of evidence try to guarantee that an accurate, factual basis is used for the application of the law. Such rules are the core of most methods of adjudication and they are the main theme of the present volume, which focuses specifically on the rules of evidence within the context of efficiency in civil proceedings.

This book provides a comparative analysis of the process of fact-finding in the litigation process. It offers theoretical insights on the distinctive features of the fact-finding arrangements in civil cases andt also examines the empirical data that shed light on the operation of procedural rules in legal practice.