Tilburg Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Civil Law and Conflict Resolution Systems

Interdisciplinary and empirical-based research, with a focus on the individuals and corporations who use, are involved with, or are influenced by the law and the civil justice system.

Current projects of TISCO

Fair Business Practices
The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation has commissioned TISCO to explore the feasibility of developing of a code of conduct for fair business practices. In an interactive process with relevant stakeholders, TISCO's Corry van Zeeland, Machteld de Hoon, Maurits Barendrecht, Karlijn van Doorn and Jessey Liauw-A-Joe will map the current legal issues, avenues for improvement and prospective options for fast and fair conflict resolution. The interim results will be presented and discussed at a conference in November 2011. You can read more about the project in Dutch.

Innovative Rule of Law Initiative
The Innovative Rule of Law Initiative (Innovatieve Rechtsstaat Initiatief) is a collaboration between European partners with the aim of developing an innovative product development process. With an emphasis on cooperation between the private and public sectors, IRI develops new ways of delivering rule of law services throughout the world. The IRI website is here, or read more about the project here.

Echtscheidingsplan
A team of TISCO and TILT researchers is currently developing an online tool that promotes self-help when partners decide to break up their relationship. Aim of the application is to provide a cooperative setting that facilitates amicable settlement of the most common issues in divorce. Ultimately, the tool will be implemented in the existing 'Rechtwijzer' (Signpost to Justice) website, which is freely accessible in Dutch... more about this project.

Measuring Access to Justice
The Measuring Access to Justice is a research and development program that aims to develop a standard methodology for measuring the costs and quality that users may expect on the most common paths to justice. The Measuring Access to Justice methodology has already been implemented in Bulgaria and Nicaragua. Read more about Measuring Access to Justice here.

Legal needs Ukraine
This project intends to investigate the prevalence and impact of civil problems and the response strategies to the different types of problems and to outline a general picture of the access to civil justice in Ukraine. In order to achieve the objectives of the study the research team will conduct a large number of face-to-face interviews (ca. 2000) with a large stratified sample of adults... more about this project.

Microjustice Initiative
Microjustice is an innovative bottom-up approach to access to justice. It aims to deliver justice to the people at the base of the pyramid who live on less than $2 a day by making justice affordable and accessible. The Microjustice Initiative is composed of the Toolbox (to produce tools to assist in conflict resolution), Sharing Rules (to provide norm data to help parties come to an agreement), and Measuring Access to Justice Projects. Read more about this initiative here.

Banking, Finance and Services
This project aims at developing the legal understanding and regulation of the field of services in general, and financial services and banking in particular. This area has seen numerous new developments, both in the field of regulation (by the European Union and national legislator) as in the social impact (credit crunch, financial networks). Traditionally this has been the area of private law, which has been reluctant to intervene in the operation of market forces. Recently, regulation has strengthened and has been reenforced by public law regulation. This leads to questions regarding the role of private law versus public law and market economy, the possibility and desirability of regulation, economic impact of rules, and the particular nature of (financial) services and banking compared to other contractual relationships. Read more about this project here.

Diagnosis and Triage
Everyone has to deal with situations where opposed interests may potentially lead to a conflict. Most people, however, are inexperienced in dispute resolution. Within the Diagnosis and Triage, a method is developed that can be used to guide people on their path towards resolving a conflict... more about this project.

The Globalization of Class Actions: A Comparative Analysis
Over the past decade there has been a remarkable transformation in the ability of citizens around the world to bring civil legal actions for compensation in representative or aggregated group form. Once limited to the US, class action procedures have now been adopted in at least 20 jurisdictions and are under debate in a number of other countries... more about this project.