Civil Procedure: A European Ius Commune?

In: European Review of Private Law, Band 8, Heft 4, S. 589-611

Abstract

In many countries civil procedure is considered a subject hardly lending itself for scholarly investigation. To prove that this was not always the case, the present article starts by outlining the history of civil procedural law as an academic discipline. The outline shows that civil procedure was considered to be worthy of scholarly attention up to the period of codification. The situation changed after the laws of civil procedure in the various European countries had been codified. One of the reasons was the decline in significance of legal history and comparative law as a result of codification. The article subsequently discusses two questions of civil procedure particularly deserving academic study within the context of contemporary Europe. The questions are the following: 1) To what extent can the law of civil procedure be regarded as an international, European discipline? 2) What roles can legal history and comparative law play in shaping the future law of civil procedure?