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Governmental And Private Advocates For The Public Interest In Civil Litigation: A Comparative Study, Mauro Cappellitti

Michigan Law Review

This article examines the means by which public and group interests are represented in civil proceedings throughout the world. I have focused particular attention upon the Ministère public--a French institution imported by a large number of countries--and its analogues, the Attorney General in the common-law countries and the Prokuratura in the socialist world. The Ministère public is, and has been through its centuries-long history, an institutional method for assuring that the "public interest"--or the "collective" or "general interest,'' or the "social concern"--is adequately represented in civil litigation. Yet, other solutions have been utilized--to some extent, even in France--in lieu …