The difficulties created by the increasing prospect of litigating abroad cannot be underestimated. Larger firms may be able to minimize such difficulties through their network of offices in other jurisdictions and others will normally appoint an appropriate agent. Nevertheless, the client at home will expect to obtain informed reports as to how the case is proceeding and few legal advisers are likely to have so much faith in an agent that they will delegate to them the task of making strategic decisions. If the home-based adviser is to discharge these tasks effectively, then he or she will need at least some working knowledge of the civil procedure of the legal system in which the litigation is being conducted. The provision of this working knowledge is the aim of this book.

There are 17 chapters, covering 16 States, both civil and common law, and the institutions of the European Union. The contributors are all practitioners with direct experience of the legal systems upon which they have been asked to write. In the interests of uniformity, each chapter seeks to cover the same stages of litigation, or the nearest equivalent, and in the same order: (i) establishing jurisdiction; (ii) commencing the action; (iii) interim protection of assets pending trial; (iv) trial; (v) post-trial motions; (vi) appeal; (vii) the conclusiveness of judgments; (viii) ascertaining the applicable law; (ix) obtaining information prior to trial; (x) summary judgments; (xi) judgment and kinds of relief; and (xii) enforcement and execution of judgments. On occasion, this can give the appearance of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole but, in general, it works well and enables direct comparisons to be made fairly easily.

The reader will be reassured to find that legal systems the world over have much in common but, equally, careful reading should ring appropriate alarm bells at some of the more disconcerting differences. A short trip to France will serve to illustrate. (1) For those unfamiliar with the provisions of the French Civil Code, it may come as something of a shock to find out that, in cases