Rule of Law Award Selection Criteria

The Rule of Law Award (formerly referred to as the CEELI Award) was established in 1994 to honor leaders who have taken significant steps towards implementing democratic and legal reforms in a country or region, or internationally. The recipient of the Rule of Law Award must agree to accept the award in person at the awards ceremony.  The honoree can be a person, a group of people or an organization. The ABA Rule of Law Initiative board selects the recipient based on the following criteria:

• Nominee’s role in legal reform the nominee must have acted to change existing legal structures to ensure the establishment of an independent legal system or worked to ensure access to, or the proper function of, the justice system.

• Nominee’s role in protecting human rights in a country: the nominee must have taken important steps to ensure the protection of individual rights, to address ethnic tensions and to build a civil society.

• Nominee’s stature internationally: the nominee will have used his position, prominence or professional capacity to advance democracy and the rule of law not only in his or her country, but throughout the region and the world.