In the last few years, the European Union has adopted a number of new regulations seeking to enhance judicial cooperation in civil matters, dealing with issues such as jurisdiction and enforcement of foreign judgments (replacement of the 1968 Brussels Convention and extension to some family matters), taking of evidence, insolvency proceedings, service of judicial and extrajudicial documents and cross-border enforcement orders. While this swift evolution has triggered a lot of interest and intense debate about the building of an efficient European Judicial Area, there has been much less energy devoted to dealing with the relations between this new entity and third states. Yet a number of pressing questions pertaining to this topic have arisen. They include inter alia the relationship between the EC regulations and existing international conventions (such as the 1970 Hague Convention on the taking of evidence abroad or the 1958 Hague Convention on service of documents), the definition of the connecting factors that trigger the application of the EC regulations in transnational disputes, the "extraterritorial" reach of the EC regulations, discrimination between EU and non-EU parties, the impact of the existing Regulations on future negotiation of global conventions in this area, etc. The papers included in this volume present the most thorough and systematic effort yet to cover those and related issues pertaining to judicial cooperation in civil matters between the European Union and third States. The book is the outcome of an international research project coordinated by the Unit for Private International Law of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, with the participating of leading experts in international litigation coming from universities across Europe and the United States. The research project was conducted as part of the European Commission's Framework Program for Judicial Cooperation in Civil Matters.