The “Central and Eastern European Law Institute” (CEELI), housed in the Villa Gröbovka in Prague, is an independent, non-profit organization that specializes in providing continuing legal education for lawyers. Its mission is to develop a community of reformers committed to the rule of law. By means of training programs, the Institute seeks to encourage the lawyers and judges of the “countries in transition” in their efforts to promote the continuing development of free market economies and democratic institutions as well as support for human rights ( HYPERLINK "http://www.ceeliinstitute.org" www.ceeliinstitute.org). Since its establishment in 1999, the Institute has welcomed more than 1,500 participants from 35 various countries.

The CEELI Institute came into being as the result of an initiative of the American bar to provide support to the new political regimes that arose as a result of the democratic reforms following the fall of the Berlin wall. Today, this initiative is being developed worldwide under the name of ABA-ROLI (American Bar Association – Rule of Law Initiative).

The CEELI’s three central areas of activity take the form of training that is focused primarily on a specific theme, such as “adjudication in a democratic society” in the area of “supporting democratic institutions”, intellectual property law in the area of “supporting free market economies”, and the “protection of human rights in a democratic legal system” in the area of human rights.

The resources that support the CEELI come primarily from the association of the Friends of the CEELI Institute (82 %) and various businesses (16 %). Support is also provided by a variety of public or parapublic institutions such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Department for International Development (DFID) or by professional associations that themselves are supported by public financing. The vast majority of its contributors are located in the United States. The Institute’s annual budget is the range of one million dollars.
Beyond providing training in the strict sense of the word, the goal of the Institute is to establish a network of legal correspondents throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and to disseminate tools for assessing policies of legal reform. In addition to obtaining training in the substantive law, CEELI participants are exposed to examining various forms of judicial reasoning as well as the organization of legal systems.

 The Institute is basically a program conceived of and headed by American lawyers for the so-called “countries in transition” of Central and Eastern Europe. Participation by European jurists is very limited inasmuch as the participants also include judges from the member states of the European Union. There is but one course offering on European commercial law, with the remainder consisting of training content that largely reflects the influence of the American participants. This is the case, for example, of a seminar that brings together high-level judges in connection with the projected legal network.

 These traits also provide evidence of the nature of the CEELI Institute. In contrast to the Academy of European Law in Trier, it is not an organization that provides training in European Union law. Rather, this institution reflects a certain policy vision of the law, as evidenced by the program entitled “Supporting free market economies” and its emphasis on the protection of intellectual property rights. By the same token, its nearly exclusive focus on magistrates corresponds to an approach that is strongly colored by the common law tradition. Inasmuch as nearly all of the trainees of these programs are from continental law countries, there are scarcely any program instructors who are practitioners of this legal tradition.

The CEELI Institute thus constitutes a source of legal influence on Central and Eastern Europe, notwithstanding its status as a NGO, which promotes a specific view of the law. Although this is not problematic in itself, it does however fail to reflect a balanced approach to legal diversity and specifically as regards familiarity with the continental law tradition.