Advancing Judicial Independence
As part of its global Rule of Law Initiative, the American Bar Association in 1990 founded the Central European and Eurasian Initiative, also known as CEELI, as its first international technical legal assistance program. In 2000, CEELI founded the CEELI Institute, an international, independent, not-for-profit educational entity dedicated to advancing the rule of law by supporting the law reform process in Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Middle East.
LexisNexis has funded four significant LexisNexis Scholarship packages to the CEELI Institute. The scholarships, to be awarded annually, will enable judges, lawyers and legal reformers from around the world to attend training classes at the CEELI Institute in Prague, Czech Republic, to prepare them to meet the challenges of democratization in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union. Training focal areas include anti-corruption/public integrity, criminal law reform, combating human trafficking, as well as judicial, legal education and legal profession reform.