This book provides unique and timely comparative insights into how parties to litigation can modify the rules of civil procedure by agreement. Special national reports from 20 jurisdictions (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, England and Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey and the United States) discuss the various aspects of court proceedings that the parties are allowed to shape, such as choice-of-court, division of costs, appeals, access to evidence, the form of proceedings and pre-filing obligations, notably, the use of mediation. They also discuss the limits to such agreements, the broader context of agreements and the recent shifts in attitudes to procedural agreements.The general report traces the nexus between the underlying civil procedure system, the beliefs it is embedded within, the arguments used to support or oppose such agreements, and the rules and practices regarding procedural agreements. The links between the contractualisation of civil proceedings and the related phenomena of consensualisation, flexibilisation and fragmentation are also explored.
