Lectures on Civil Law Litigation Systems and American Cooperation with those Systems

Abstract:     
This article is aimed at helping to overcome a lack of mutual understanding in the field of civil litigation, "mutual" in this context meaning the USA on the one hand and the civil law countries of Europe on the other, partially including the United Kingdom. The article [thus] culminates in a [third] lecture called, "A New Hague Convention and the United States". In this lecture the author, on the basis of his knowledge of litigation in civil law and common law countries, ventures to imagine what concerns he would have if he were an American and responsible for defending American interests in negotiation a New Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgements modelled on the Brussels Convention. In the first two lectures the author develops the basis for his "friendly" advice. Under the heading of "Basic Elements of Litigation in Civil Law Countries" he makes an attempt to explain what, in these countries, is fundamentally different from the trial-based litigation in the USA. The emphasis of this second lecture focuses particularly on how information on the underlying facts reaches the judges' eyes and ears and on how "international traditional venue" rather than "international jurisdiction" is conceived. The second lecture explains the system and effectiveness of the Brussels (inter-European) Convention on Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgements. He points out that inter-European "full faith and credit" of judgements is even stronger than among the states of the USA. He further analyses the concepts of jurisdiction which may look very foreign to American eyes but, in substance, do not deviate very much from the comparable philosophies of American standards.

JEL Classification: K41

Accepted Paper Series