Inaugural Letter

Dear members and friends,
In these times of economic and political turbulences the IAPL is flourishing. After a long and very successful time Marcel Storme being president we are yet in a certain time of transition, as in a very natural way a younger generation shall and will take over and run the business of the IAPL step by step.
This transition is apparent with the office of the president. The last “president’s letter” of 2009 originated by Federico Carpi, and now, since September 2009 the turn to preside is with me, the youngest elected to the presidium in 1995. Our Honorary President Marcel Storme can celebrate his 80th birthday this summer. Federico Carpi completed the 70th year of his life in January. I myself have passed the age of 65.
Federico Carpi was a highly esteemed, very diligent Secretary General and likewise an impressive President. In the name of all of us and personally I would like to thank him (and his wife Paola) very warmly for his great personal engagement in favour of the IAPL over such a long period.
In his letter of 2009 Federico reminded all of us of the respectable history of our Association and was perfectly right to hail again all great scientists who took directly part in the life of the IAPL. Who wants to learn about famous teachers of procedural law from the fifties to the first decade of the 21st century is kindly invited to read again Federico’s appealing report.
Like him I feel much honored to become president after 14 years serving as secretary general. I am very happy and grateful about this.
Main concern of my presidency will be to intensify our efforts to improve the transnational cooperation between lawyers and the exchange of legal information which are the basic objects of our association as well as encouraging young scholars from all over the world to engage in this cooperation.
Since 1978 the papers of our World Congresses and of all interim conferences are published and form a very remarkable library of comparative procedural law. We are, however, still lacking a constant platform for the exchange of ideas which is open to all members and not just to a limited number of conference reporters. On a first suggestion by Stefan Leible and on particular effort of Marcel Storme the IAPL is now going to launch a new multilingual “International Journal of Procedural Law”. This journal shall be published twice a year by Intersentia Publishers, Belgium, with Lo?c Cadiet and me as editors-in-chief together with an excellent team of editors, assistant editors and senior advisers. The journal shall contain articles in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. The first number shall be published in spring 2011. As our journal shall be a real common international forum all of you are kindly invited to submit their proposals to the general editors. To ensure a high quality all articles are subject to a severe peer review before they are accepted for publication. I am confident that our common efforts will lead the journal to success, becoming soon a leading review of procedural law in an international context.
In addition, we shall improve the website of the IAPL, in particular convert it into a technically independent platform of the IAPL.
In the meantime both conferences which were announced in the last president’s letter have been held with great success. Manuel Ortells Ramos (together with his team) has perfectly organized his conference in October 2008 in Gandia and Valencia in Spain. Already at the conference he could present two volumes on “Oral and written proceedings: Efficiency in civil procedure” (ed. together with Federico Carpi) and one volume on”Appeals to Supreme Courts in Europe”. Janet Walker and Oscar Chase (also together with their team) could likewise offer a brilliant conference in June 2009 in Toronto. The papers presented there were only recently published with LexisNexis in a well edited book titled “Common Law, Civil Law and the Future of Categories.” Many thanks again to all who contributed to the success of both conferences.
This year we are looking ahead very soon to the Pécs conference on “Electronic Justice – Present and Future”, September 23-25, 2010, organized by Miklos Kengyel. The conference is devoted to all innovations and changes which the introduction or, should I say, invasion of the modern electronic information technology will lead us to in the civil justice system. Pécs is a remarkable city in southern Hungary worthwhile to be visited as it is one of the cultural capitals of Europe of this year.
Next year, 25-30 July 2011, the XIV World Congress of Procedural Law will take place in Heidelberg (Germany), locally organized by Burkhard Hess within the celebrations of the 625th anniversary of the Ruprecht-Karl University of Heidelberg. After many years of focusing the efficiency of civil justice the congress is devoted to the core of our activities, namely realizing “Procedural Justice”. All members of the IAPL are kindly invited to participate in this event in the romantic city of Heidelberg.
For 2012 I can even announce two conferences: one in spring in Argentina organized by Eduardo Oteiza on behalf the Argentine Association of Procedural Law and the Iberoamerican Institute of Procedural Law on class actions and a second one in Moscow (Russia) organized by Dmitri Maleshin of Lomonossov University on “Civil Procedure in Eurasia in cross-cultural dialogue”. We are very happy that it is possible to have such conferences for the first time in both countries.
This letter shall not end without many thanks to all members of the presidium for their kind cooperation, in particular to our Executive Secretary General Lo?c Cadiet, for the amicable handling of our everyday business and for the preparation of this new edition of the Membership’s list.
Concluding this letter I kindly request all members to use the offered possibilities of scholarly and personal contact and exchange, to present their ideas within the forum of the IAPL, to encourage young scholars who are interested in international cooperation to participate in the activities of the IAPL and to nominate them to become new members.

2010