The CEELI Institute

Final call: Fundamental Strategic Litigation Training 📣

Applications are now open for the last Fundamental Strategic Litigation Training, taking place on 21–23 September.

The training is designed to strengthen the use of strategic litigation in defending fundamental rights, the rule of law, and democratic principles across the EU.

🔍Fundamental training sessions focus on
- How the EU law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights can be utilized in both national courts and European courts.
- Strategic approaches, including the importance of case selection, framing legal arguments, and considering the broader implications for national and European legal systems.
- Legal remedies and redress mechanisms available under EU law, including how to seek reparations for violations of fundamental rights, file complaints with the EU courts, and leverage existing EU legislation to ensure the enforcement of rights.
- And more!

The trainings are meant for civil society organizations (CSOs), legal practitioners, and human rights defenders from EU Member States, in particular, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The CEELI Institute will arrange accommodation and reimburse travel expenses from EU countries for participants. [More details on our website]

📌 Apply now for the last fundamental training in the series and keep an eye out for the upcoming advanced training call: https://ceeliinstitute.org/course/trainings-on-strategic-litigation

The trainings are funded by the European Union’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV).

Strengthening resilience, skills, and community with immediate solutions.💡

From 21 to 24 April, the CEELI Institute assembled the growing alumni community of the Ukrainian Fellowship & Respite Program in Prague for four focused days of training, exchange, and practical problem-solving. The group included human rights defenders, activists, volunteers, journalists, and anti-corruption experts from 2024, 2025, and 2026 fellowship cohorts, highlighting the continuity and growing strength of the CEELI Fellows network.

We were honored to have Kate Davenport, Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of the United Kingdom in the Czech Republic, deliver welcoming remarks, and in flawless Ukrainian!

Main topics of the workshop were:
💻Cybersecurity and safe use of AI, presented by Anastasiia Apetyk, CEO of Apetyk Consulting and a leading voice in cybersecurity, digital rights, and ethical AI.
📖 Strategic advocacy, conducted by Alona Lunova, Advocacy Director at ZMINA Human Rights Center.
💪Burnout prevention and mental resilience, carried out by Daria Skalova, a psychologist and psychotherapist specializing in trauma and resilience in crisis contexts.

Participants shared that the workshop was packed with solutions they could use in their daily work. Several participants used the sessions to review real security risks, improve internal practices, and refine advocacy and campaign approaches for their organizations with the help of the trainers.

Beyond skills-building, the program offered reflection, peer exchange, and networking for professionals in justice and human rights. The calendar also included a visit to the Embassy of Ukraine in the Czech Republic, where participants met Ambassador Vasyl Zvarych and discussed the current pressures on Ukrainian civil society.

At a time when the wartime demands on civil society remain immense, investing in their security, well-being, and professional capacity remains essential. This is what sustained support for the rule of law and human rights looks like in practice.

On Thursday, April 23d, the CEELI Institute launched the first of its 25th Anniversary celebrations at the London offices of Ankura. 🎉

Joining us were CEELI Board Members Natalia Shehadeh, Jean Michel Ferat, and Bruno Cova, CEELI’s Executive Director Robert Strang, and our invited guests, all of whom share a commitment to advancing the rule of law.

We were especially honored to welcome Baroness Helena Kennedy as our distinguished speaker. One of the UK’s most respected lawyers, Baroness Kennedy, has had an extraordinary career as a member of the Bar, King’s Counsel, Bencher of Gray’s Inn, and a voice for justice in the House of Lords. She currently serves as the Director of the International Bar Association’s Institute of Human Rights, and is a member of the CEELI International Advisory Board.
In her remarks, the Baroness shared powerful insights from her work, including her heroic success in 2021 in evacuating 102 women judges and prosecutors (along with their families, totaling 508 people) from Afghanistan who were in grave personal danger following the return of the Taliban. She raised funds, chartered flights, secured safe houses, and arranged for their resettlement worldwide. She also spoke about her ongoing work in Ukraine, focusing on war crimes and efforts to locate and return thousands of children abducted by Russian forces.

Our sincere thanks to Ankura for hosting this event, and to Baroness Kennedy for her inspiring and impactful work on human rights and advancing the rule of law.⚖️

Last week, Marek Svoboda, CEELI Institute’s Director of Programs, and Weronika Machała, CEELI Communications Officer, joined the INCEPT Project event and partners meeting in Poznań, Poland.

The international exchange focused on practical challenges and good practices in applying the European Investigation Order, particularly in cases involving the interception of telecommunications.

The discussion will continue through the INCEPT Project channels and later this year at CEELI’s own international gathering at Villa Grébovka in Prague.

⏳ The deadline is approaching!

Don’t miss your chance to join this year’s Summer School: Legal Skills in Time of War.
Make sure to submit your application by April 30.

We’re looking forward to receiving your application.
Apply with the link in the comments before it’s too late!

Ukraine Summer School Applications are Now Open! 📣

Don’t miss your chance to apply for the fifth edition of CEELI Summer School! We are happy to invite Ukrainian law students and early career lawyers to join us in Prague for a two-week summer school focused on legal skills essential in times of war.

The course will feature lectures, discussions, and interactive group work on topics such as:
⚖️Interviewing and client-centered counseling
⚖️Witness examination techniques
⚖️Trauma-informed lawyering
⚖️Principles of International Humanitarian Law
⚖️War crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.. and much more.

This year the courses will be conducted by a panel of experienced law professionals, such as Dmytro Koval Associate Professor (National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy; Co-Executive Director of Truth Hounds) Judith Ritter (Distinguished Professor of Law, Widener University Delaware Law School), Nobuo Hayashi, (Associate Professor (Docent) and Senior Lecturer at the Swedish Defence University), Mariia Tsypiashchuk (Legal Advisor on Documentation of War Crimes Against Cultural Heritage, Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU) and many other distinguished professionals.

🔗Visit our website to learn more and apply. You will find the link in the comments.

Deadline for applications is 11:00 pm CEST on 30 April 2026.

Visit from the Judicial Training Institute of the Court of Justice of Thailand 🤝

On March 11, CEELI Institute welcomed a delegation from the Judicial Training Institute (JTI) of the Court of Justice of Thailand to Villa Grébovka in Prague.

During the visit, CEELI Institute’s Program Director Marek Svoboda introduced the Institute’s work over the past 25 years, highlighting our efforts in judicial training, anti-corruption, and support for lawyers and judges across Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. 🌍

Mariia Kaplina, Program Manager for Ukraine, shared further insights into CEELI’s work in Ukraine, including trainings for Ukrainian judges and lawyers on the European Convention on Human Rights, the annual summer school Legal Skills in a Time of War, and the fellowship and respite opportunities for Ukrainian civil society representatives.

💬 The visit sparked a lively exchange, with the delegation asking many thoughtful questions about CEELI’s programs and experience. We were pleased to host this valuable meeting at Villa Grébovka and wish the delegation a successful continuation of their study visit, with Vienna as their next stop.

How should judges communicate in times of growing pressure on the judiciary❔

That was one of the key questions explored during CEELI Senior Project Manager Marcela Entlichová’s meetings in Strasbourg.

A central focus of the visit was CEELI's newly published Guidelines on Judicial Communication with the Public and the Media, as well as CEELI’s ongoing work with judges from the CEELI CEE Judicial Exchange Network on how courts and judges can communicate ethically, consistently, and effectively in today’s increasingly pressured public environment.

🤝 During the visit, Marcela met with judges and representatives of the European Court of Human Rights to discuss the Guidelines and the scope of judges’ freedom of expression. A shared view emerged that judges should exercise this freedom proportionately and responsibly, particularly when speaking on matters directly affecting the judiciary, such as attacks on judicial independence or legislative threats to the rule of law. The importance of coordinated, principled communication rather than political messaging was a key theme, captured in the idea: 🗣️“Multiple voices, one message.”

Marcela also met with Anna Austin, Jurisconsult, to discuss promoting human rights and ways of supporting practitioners defending democracy. It was noted that tools like the CEELI Guidelines on Judicial Communication are vital at a time of growing pressure on the judiciary. In addition, Marcela spoke with Judges Janczarek and Hetnarowicz-Sikora, and other Polish colleagues about the Committee of Ministers’ efforts to enforce European Court of Human Rights judgments and whether this helps tackle rule of law issues in Poland.

The visit also reaffirmed the relevance of CEELI’s 2024 publication, “Navigating the Jurisdiction and Landmark Rulings of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU: A Guide to Protecting the Rule of Law in the European Courts Amid Backsliding”, which provides judges and judicial associations with practical guidance grounded in recent case law and identifies concrete avenues for legal redress in the face of political pressure.

⚖️ At a time of growing pressure on courts across Europe, these conversations in Strasbourg reinforced why judicial independence, public trust, and strong human rights protections must remain at the centre of rule of law work.

CEELI Institute in Berlin-Cafe Kyiv 2026

Our Program Manager for Ukraine, Mariia Kaplina, represented the Institute at Cafe Kyiv Berlin 2026, one of the largest international platforms dedicated to Ukraine, organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.🔍

This year, Cafe Kyiv was a record-setting event, bringing together over 400 speakers and more than 5,000 participants and 170 organizations from across Europe. During the event, more than 120 individual programs were delivered across 12 simultaneous tracks of panel discussions, workshops, presentations, activities, and documentary film screenings. Additionally, Cafe Kyiv provided an amazing hub for information and networking for civil society groups and international organizations.

The central focus of this year’s conference was Ukraine’s security, recovery, and development. As emphasized by Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Center for Civil Liberties / Центр громадянських свободter for Civil Liberties and long-time CEELI partner:
💬Peace means living in freedom, without fear of violence. Peace cannot mean leaving people under occupation. Any so-called “peace deal” that abandons people to occupation is not a true peace.💬

🎥A highlight of the programme was the discussion of “The War They Play”, a documentary by The Kyiv Independent exposing the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children. Kateryna Rashevska (Regional Center for Human Rights) detailed 175 Russian re-education camps and ongoing advocacy to reunite abducted Ukrainian children with their families, involving UN mechanisms.

Cafe Kyiv Berlin emphasised the importance of maintaining ongoing support for civil society groups operating under very difficult circumstances to assist Ukraine and defend democratic values and the rule of law. The Institute very much appreciated the chance to engage with its existing Ukrainian partners and identify other organizations that may require assistance in the future.

Meeting with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate- Ales Bialiatski 💡

The CEELI Institute was honored this week to welcome Ales Bialiatski, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Belarusian human rights defender, to the Institute during his visit to Prague.

🇨🇿 During his time in the Czech Republic, Ales met with President Petr Pavel, senior government ministers, members of parliament, and representatives from civil society.

Ales has been imprisoned twice in Belarus for his efforts to promote democracy, human rights, and peace in Belarus, and was released only in December 2025 as part of a negotiated deal by the United States.

The CEELI Institute is firmly committed to supporting a future Belarus where the rule of law and fundamental rights are fully respected, and working with its longtime partner, the Viasna Human Rights Centre, which Ales founded thirty years ago.🤝