Funding of justice has significant consequences for the enforcement of rights and impacts directly on access to justice and the right to a fair trial as constitutional rights. Access to justice in turn essentially impacts on the effective enjoyment of any other constitutional right, since having the actual means to access a court in case of a potential breach strengthens that right. Public funding, such as legal aid, has come under pressure due to the reality of financial austerity measures and the tightening public budgets in many countries. This has contributed to privatization and marketisation of funding in ever more jurisdictions. Private forms of funding include inter alia litigation insurance, third-party litigation finance and crowdfunding, as well as different forms of assigning or selling claims. As public funding is in decline and as market liberalization in the field of justice increases, crucial questions related to the rule of law, access to justice and social and economic development, in the intersection between states, citizens and business are raised. For example, potential questions of conflict of interest and how to ensure a basic level of equality of access to funding, whilst at the same time protecting market freedom. Some of the contributions in the volume deal with the consequences of privatization of funding of justice on access to justice from a general, principled and theoretical perspective. Other contributions deal with specific regulatory developments or issues at the EU level, alternatively at the local level in specific jurisdictions. Further contributions deal with crucial issues of funding of justice in environmental matters, that are increasingly relevant and topical in practice.
