Inaugural Letter

It is not without a certain nostalgia that I add a short foreword to the issue of our booklet containing the names of the members of our worldwide association which now appears once again through the good offices of Federico Carpi.
It was indeed 30 years ago, in 1976, that on the occasion of the10th anniversary of the Belgian Code of Judicial Procedure (1967-1977) in Ghent I conceived the idea of organizing a worldwide symposium on procedurallaw with the title: Towards a Justice with a Human Face.
We were overwhelmed by the tremendous success of this event , which brought no fewer than 300 participants from 50 countries to Ghent.
In the preparation of this first World Congress, I was able to rely on the unstinted support of our much-lamented former President, Mauro Capelletti, and our equally mourned former Secretary-General, Vittorio Denti.
The tone was set, followed at once by the breakthrough of the scientific and comparative-law approach to procedural law, but now on a world scale – in the footsteps of the International Association of Procedural Law launched in Florence in 1948.
In the early stages, it was difficult to find a location where the next World Congress could be held. Finally, it was our colleague Walther Habscheid who took upon himself the organization of the event in the magnificent city of Würzburg.
Since then we have organized large-scale Congresses every four years: successively at Utrecht, Coimbra, Taormina , Vienna and Mexico. We also managed to fit in an Extraordinary Congress in Bologna on the occasion of the 9OOth anniversary of the establishment there of the oldest university
Symposia of more modest proportions have also been organized in various locations, namely Lund, Lublin, Thessalonica, New Orleans, Ghent, Brussels, Coimbra, Paris/Dijon, Vienna/Budapest, Kyoto.
During the forthcoming World Congress in Salvador de Bahia, the Presidium that has been in office since Taormina (1995) will resign in a body.
Some members of the Presidium have agreed to take up office again together with a number of new members to be elected in Salvador de Bahia.
Thus a new era will come to an end; the era of Niceto Alcala Zamora y Aragon, the era of Mauro Cappelletti and the era of the current Presidium will be followed by a new era which will see the continuity of our world-renowned Association.
There are few tasks of the law which would appear to be so intimately linked to national interests as procedural law. This was consistently underlined in all manuals dealing procedural law in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Such has also been the experience in the European Union, where initially any attempt to harmonize, or at least approximate, procedural law within the Union met with particularly fierce opposition.
This national, in some cases even nationalistic, approach contrasts sharply with the fact there is no branch of law in the world in which the problems are the same everywhere: to ensure access to justice which will be granted in a way which is at the same time affordable, quick and transparent. This is the golden rule which is summarized in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights:” a fair trial within a reasonable time before an impartial and independent judge”.
There can be no doubt that the breakthrough of procedural law on the world forum owed its accomplishment to the pioneering work of the outstanding comparatist in this field, my honoured and illustrious predecessor, Mauro Cappelletti.
His Access to Justice, also his opus magnum, was an awesome eye-opener to the whole world.
With the International Association we have built further on this foundation.
The proceedings of all symposia and Congresses have been published in elegant volumes and in this way made available to procedural law scholars throughout the world.
The import and export of best practices in civil procedural law can no longer be said to be a significant exception, as was evidenced in particular during the most recent symposium in Kyoto.
Now my period in office as President is to be irrevocably terminated at the Salvador de Bahia Congress, I take this opportunity to express my gratitude for the privilege of having experienced this wonderful international adventure.
Gratitude to my revered predecessor, Mauro Cappelletti, with whom I was able to set up excellent cooperation to the benefit of our Association.
And gratitude to the Presidium currently in office, which since Taormina has invariably and readily devoted its thinking and directed its cooperation to serving the interests of our Association and the well-being of citizens throughout the world.
It is to them that our thoughts have turned each time we have attempted to improve or at least take steps towards improving the operation of judicial institutions, the functioning of process and the rules of procedural law
May all go well with the Presidium that is to be elected in Salvador de Bahia That is the most ardent wish of a grateful International Association President on the brink of retirement.

Ghent, 16 January 2007