PREPARATIONS PRIOR TO PROJECT APPLICATION

For this research project a global cooperation of international researchers is indispensable. Due to his broad international connections to researchers from all over the world, the project applicant, Professor Dr. Masanori Kawano (Nagoya University, School of Law, Japan), saw the opportunity to create such a human network for the effective acquisition of information on international business litigation.
It all began with the participaton of Professor Dr. Kawano in the working group of the American Law Institute (ALI) and UNIDROIT (the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) joint project, participating in the development of the draft of the "Principles and Rules of Transnational Civil Procedure" from 2000-2003. During this period working group sessions were held each year for 1 week in Rome, Italy at the seat of the Institute. The working group consisted of 7 members: Mr. Rolf Stuerner (Freiburg University, Germany), Mr. Neil Andrews (Cambridge University, U.K.), Ms. Aida Kemelmajer de Carlucci (Supreme Court of Justice of Mendoza, Argentina), Ms. Frederique Ferrand (Universite Jean Moulin, Lyon, France), Mr. Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr. (University of Pennsylvania Law School, former Director of ALI), Mr. Pierre Lalive (Lalive & Partners and Geneva University, Switzerland) and the applicant of this research project, Mr. Masanori Kawano. In 2003, the working group compiled a report on the study results and in 2004 the draft was adopted by the Governing Council of UNIDROIT as well as ALI. The major objective of the study was to clarify the basic principles of civil procedure, with the aim of harmonizing countries' legal systems regarding transnational business lawsuits.
This research project now is based on the idea of the ALI/UNIDROIT joint project working group and expands its objective to the establishment of an international framework and a methodology for comparative legal studies, so as to help alleviate the problems commonly found in the international legal community and to enable parties in transnational lawsuits, and legal professionals, to exchange and share legal information in the most accurate and appropriate manner. Based on the above, the research idea was discussed already at an early stage with some of the working group members.

Two now core members of this research project, Professor Dr. Rolf Stuerner (Freiburg University, Germany) and Professor Peter Murray (Harvard Law School, U.S.A.) decided together with Professor Dr. Kawano to participate in a joint research project on effective transnational business litigation and attempted to organize a symposium on this topic at Nagoya University in the autumn of 2005. Eventually the first symposium was held at the beginning of February 2006. Such symposia are planned to be held annually.

In addition to above connections with Germany and the U.S.A., talks were also arranged with researchers from other universities such as Lund University (Sweden), the University of Helsinki (Finland), University of Athens and the Democritus University of Thrace (Greece), University of Pecs (Hungary), University of Cambridge (UK), University of Florence and University of Padova (Italy) and the Catholic University of Lublin (Poland).

• Preparations prior to project application
• Research Plan