Extinctive Prescription / On the Limitation of Actions contains sixteen national reports and the general report on the subject, written for the XIVth Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, held from 31 July-August, 1994, in Athens, Greece. The volume deals 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, interrupted by which circumstances, etc. The trend in modern legislation has been to shorten the periods of extinctive prescription. Recent occurrences in biology and medicine, however, have led to proposals to lengthen the limitation periods again. The reports discuss the situation in Europe, Latin America, and North America, and are especially interesting because of their comparative nature.