The Globalization of Class Actions: An Overview

In less than a decade, the number of countries that permit representative litigation by private actors has multiplied dramatically. A minority of these procedures share all the features of the American class action for money damages. But there is a trend toward permitting private individuals and organizations to come forward on behalf of absent parties to obtain injunctive or declaratory relief or monetary compensation in some or all circumstances. Whether these procedures will spread to other countries or within countries to a wide variety of substantive legal matters and whether in particular private actors will be allowed to claim money damages in many or all instances is uncertain. Currently, the key obstacles to effective implementation of class action procedures are traditional legal funding rules that do not easily accommodate the realities of representative litigation.