This collection contains sixteen national reports and general discussion on the subject, dealing with limitations of actions, or "extinctive prescription", as the subject is usually called in civil law jurisdictions. This is both a highly technical and a highly political topic. The book focuses on the political aspects of extinctive prescription, specifically, how long should prescription periods run, as of what event, and interrupted by which circumstances for example. The trend in modern legislation has been to shorten the periods of prescription whilst occurrences in biology and medicine, however, have led to proposals to lengthen the limitation periods once more. The reports discuss the situation in Europe, Latin America, and North America, and display a comparative nature.