Mathias Reimann – författare

The volume describes and analyzes how the costs of litigation in civil procedure are distributed in key countries around the world. It compares the various approaches, draws general conclusions from that comparison, and presents global trends as well as common problems and solutions. In particular, the book deals with three principal questions: First, who pays for civil litigation costs, i.e., to what extent do losers have to make winners whole? Second, how much money is at stake, i.e., how expensive is civil litigation in the respective jurisdictions? And third, whose money is ultimately spent, i.e., how are civil litigation costs distributed through mechanisms like legal aid, litigation insurance, collective actions, and success oriented fees? Inter alia, the study reveals a general trend towards deregulation of lawyer fees as well as a substantial correlation between the burden of litigation costs and membership of a jurisdiction in the civil and common law families.

This study is the result of the XVIIIth World Congress of Comparative Law held under the auspices of the International Academy of Comparative Law.

How and to what degree do federations produce uniform law within their system?  This comparative empirical study addresses these questions comprehensively for the first time.  Originally produced under the auspices of the International Academy of Comparative Law, this volume examines legal unification in twenty federations around the world. 

Each of the successive chapters presents the forces of unification through the lens of a particular federal system.  A comparative overview chapter provides a detailed analysis of the overall results with compelling visual illustrations of legal unification along different dimensions (e.g. by area of law; by federation; by civil vs common law system).  The overview chapter summarizes and analyzes the means and methods of legal unification and the degree of legal unification of each system, and explains the driving forces of legal unity and diversity in federations more generally. 

The volume presents surprising findings that should make scholars rethink their abandonment of the civil law vs. common law distinction in comparative law. ​

This book is a milestone in the study of federalism. It is a rare and welcome melding of comparative law and comparative politics using both original data and qualitative analysis. Wide-ranging, probing, and definitive, this book is an invaluable resource for students of law, politics, and multi-level governance.

Gary Marks, Burton Craige Professor, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Chair in Multilevel Governance, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam