Advancing Rule of Law in Prague.

Vaclav Havel, H. Moyer, Sandra Day O'Connor

The common thread at the Democracy and Security Conference in Prague was the role of the Rule of Law in free societies.

Fittingly, the second event I attended in Prague was the board meetings and dedication of the renovated headquarters of The CEELI Institute, which was established in Prague in 1999, and is an institution founded to build on the pro bono public service CEELI (Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative) project set up by the American Bar Association (ABA). I happen to be a member of the International Advisory Board of the CEELI Institute.

Czech President Vaclav Havel has been involved with the Institute from the very beginning. The CEELI Institute is an institution dedicated exclusively to advancing the Rule of Law.

Homer Moyer, co-founder of both ABA/CEELI and the CEELI Institute, led the delegation of board members from the US. Sandra Day O’Connor, the retired Supreme Court Justice of the US, and President Vaclav Havel were the featured speakers at the dedication.

Few outside the legal profession are aware that the CEELI Institute is a Czech public benefit corporation and a graduate-level legal and judicial education center based in Prague. CEELI has trained judges from 29 countries; half of the members of the bar of Kosovo; and the entire Supreme Court of Afghanistan.

CEELI was responsible for exposing the first 140 Iraqi judges to international experts, as part of a project to bring the Rule of Law to countries in transition. All these judges came to the Rule of Law project at great personal risk. The first presiding judge in Saddam Hussein’s trial, Judge Rizgar, was one of CEELI’s graduates. Three of the CEELI participants were assassinated in Iraq.

You can read what I wrote about the one-of-a-kind event involving the Iraqi judges here, and more about the dedication of the CEELI headquarters here.

[rule of law] [Havel] [Sandra Day O'Connor] [CEELI] [Iraq] [Afghanistan] [Rizgar]