Scientific evidence in civil courtrooms: a comparative perspective

When science comes in contact with the law, a variety of complex issues arise. Owing to the increasing number of legal questions which can (or even have to) be resolved by resort to scientific knowledge, in recent years the challenges posed by the use of scientific evidence within civil proceedings have become a hot-point in legal debates across both common law and civil law jurisdictions alike. Judges, academics, and legislators have dealt with the issue of scientific evidence in multifarious ways on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. For this reason, the aim of the paper is to analyze how the US and continental European legal cultures have shaped their approach to scientific evidence, as well as how scientific evidence has influenced the dynamics of civil proceedings in the US and continental Europe. The comparative overview of these developments will allow us to test whether the approaches to scientific evidence in the two legal traditions are really as far apart as one might think at a first glance, or whether on the contrary they have much in common, both in terms of perspectives and outcomes.