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27 Buff. L. Rev. 181 (1977-1978)
Access to Justice: The Newest Wave in the Worldwide Movement to Make Rights Effective

handle is hein.journals/buflr27 and id is 193 raw text is: ACCESS TO JUSTICE: THE NEWEST WAVE IN THE WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT TO MAKE RIGHTS EFFECTIVE* MAURO CAPPELLETI** AND BRYANT GARTH*** The authors dedicate this essay to the memory of Professor Max Rheinstein, a master whose genius, world-wide experience, and sensitivity set the stand- ards by which comparative scholarship will long be measured. But the just will live forever. (The Wisdom of Solomon 5:15.) N o aspect of our modem legal systems is immune from criticism. Increasingly it is asked how, at what price, and for whose bene- fit these systems really work; this type of fundamental question, al- ready discomforting to many lawyers, judges and legal scholars, is made all the more unsettling by an unprecedented invasion into the legal profession's traditional preserve by, among others, sociologists, anthro- pologists, economists, political scientists, and psychologists. We must not, however, resist our invaders; rather, we must respect their in- sights and respond to them creatively. By revealing the actual work- * Copyright © 1978, Mauro Cappelletti. The present essay is one of the fruits of a four-year comparative research project entitled Florence Access-to-Justice Project, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and, with a slightly more local focus, the Italian National Council of Research (CNR). The essay will serve as the General Report introducing the Project's forthcoming four-volume series. The volumes, being published by Sijthoff (Leyden and Boston) and Giuffr6 (Milan) under the general editorship of Mr. Cappelletti are: Volume I. Access to Jus- tice: A World Survey (edited by Messrs. Cappelletti and Garth); Volume II. Access to Justice: Studies of Promising Institutions (edited by Mr. Cappelletti and Mr. John Weisner); Volume III. Access to justice: Emerging Perspectives and Issues (edited by Messrs. Cappelletti and Garth); and Volume IV. Patterns in Conflict Management: Essays in the Ethnography of Law. Access to Justice in an Anthropological Perspective (edited by Professor Klaus-Friedrich Koch). Extensive references will be made in the present essay to the 23 national reports in the World Survey volume, as well as to essays and studies in the other Project volumes. The approach of the present essay, in addition, is rooted in two earlier volumes pub- lished under the auspices of the Florence Project: M. CAPPELLETTI, J. GORDLEY & E. JOHNSON, JR., ToWARD EQUAL JUSTICE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LEGAL Am IN MODERN SOCIETIES (Milan/Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Giuffr6/Oceana 1975) and M. CAP- PELLETTI & J. A. JOLOWICZ, PUBLIC INTEREST PARTIES AND THE ACTIVE ROLE OF THE JUDGE IN CIVIL LITIGATION (Milan/Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Giuffr6/Oceana 1975). A pre- (Footnote continued on next page)