Cambridge Press Publishes ALI/UNIDROIT Principles of Transnational Civil Procedure

Cambridge University Press (CUP) has published the ALI/UNIDROIT Principles of Transnational Civil Procedure Official Text, a work setting forth a universal set of procedural Principles that transcend national rules. This groundbreaking project offers a system of fair procedure to facilitate the resolution of disputes arising from transnational commercial transactions. The work aims to combine the best elements of the adversary procedure in the common-law tradition with the best elements of judge-centered procedure in the civil-law tradition and to reduce differences in legal systems, thereby easing uncertainty for parties that must litigate in unfamiliar surroundings.

By promoting an ideal of disinterested adjudication, the Principles provide essential terms of reference in matters requiring judicial cooperation among courts of different legal systems. The Principles will be useful to parties who wish to specify the procedures to apply if their agreements lead to disputes and to arbitration, as well as to organizations implementing dispute-resolution systems for transnational disputes. The work is expressed in terminology and through concepts that can be assimilated in all legal traditions.

The Reporters for this work were: ALI/UNIDROIT Reporter Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia, the Institute’s Director Emeritus; ALI Reporter Michele Taruffo of the University of Pavia in Italy; and UNIDROIT Reporter Rolf Stürner of the University of Freiburg in Germany. The Reporters were assisted by ALI Associate Reporter Antonio Gidi, a native of Brazil who is now a professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

The ALI/UNIDROIT Principles of Transnational Civil Procedure (2006, lix, 177 pp., ISBN 0-521-85501-2) is available in hardcover from Cambridge University Press in New York ($55 plus shipping and handling). To order, contact Cambridge University Press at 100 Brook Hill Drive, West Nyack, NY 10994-2133; phone: 845-353-7500; fax: 845-353-4141; or online at www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521855012. The volume will also soon be available from Cambridge University Press in the United Kingdom and in Australia.

This publication is the most recent product of the ALI’s ongoing engagement with issues of international and comparative law. In 2003 the ALI published Transnational Insolvency: Principles of Cooperation Among the NAFTA Countries, a pioneering effort in transnational law reform that has helped to influence bankruptcy reform in the NAFTA countries. More information about the ALI’s international-law publications is available in the online Publications Catalog at www.ali.org.