The ELI / UNIDROIT Model European Rules of Civil Procedure

This contribution introduces the basic conceptions of the Model European Rules of Civil Procedure, which were affirmed by the European Law Institute, Vienna, and by UNIDROIT, Rome, in 2020. In its first part it describes the prior history of the project (ALI/UNIDROIT Principles of Transnational Civil Procedure, Storme Commission) and the history of the emergence of the Model Rules between 2013 and 2020. The following parts depict the organization and coordination of the common work in the various groups, an analysis of methodological questions arising in the context of harmonization of procedural law, a detailed presentation of important results of harmonization in fields of far-reaching convergence of national procedural laws, considerations about strong future trends of procedural design and their significance for different areas of civil procedure, and finally some remarks on innovative procedural developments taken into account by the Model Rules, with important examples in fields like collective proceedings and the financing of proceedings, or in the use of modern means of communication or artificial intelligence. The contribution also contains some cautious remarks on internal conditions associated with the emergence of the Model Rules that may have influenced its results.