Comparative research on civil procedure usually starts with the presupposition that the key notions of the discipline such as ‘procedure’, ‘court’ and ‘civil justice’ are generally similar and comparable. What is different, and what can be compared, are the technical elements, such as the rights and duties of the main actors in the process, the effects of their procedural activities and the legal institutions which defi ne them. In a globalising world, one can expect convergence and harmonisation, simply because of the more intense communications and general effects of the globalisation of the economy. But contemporary development of national systems of civil justice demonstrates that simple explanations and solutions do not work. The reason why national judiciaries continue to show persistence in opposing the harmonisation and unifi cation processes, so that even the fundamental notions of procedure like res iudicata or ‘fair trial’ are understood and accepted in a dramatically different way, lies beneath the surface: it is in the different fundamental attitudes regarding the goals and aims of civil procedure and the civil justice system in general. Recognising the importance of the topic, the International Association of Procedural Law (IAPL) decided to devote a part of the 2012 Moscow Conference to the topic Goals of Civil Justice. Two main questions that had to be addressed were How do the goals of civil procedure differ from country to country? and What is the role of civil justice in the contemporary world? The following chapters are mainly derived from the reports presented at this conference. For the purpose of publication in this book they have been thoroughly revised, extended and updated to refl ect the situation in September 2013. The ten conference contributions are expanded by an additional text, which fi tted neatly the profi le of this book and was based on a report from a separate conference held in Vilnius.