European Law Institute
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| Location | Schottenring 16, Top 175, 1010 Vienna, Austria |
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| Established | June 2011 |
| President | Diana Wallis |
| Vice president | Christiane Wendehorst |
| Treasurer | Johan Gernandt |
| Members | over 1.000 |
| Website | www.europeanlawinstitute.eu |
The European Law Institute (ELI) is an independent non-profit organisation established to initiate, conduct and facilitate research, make recommendations and provide practical guidance in the field of European legal development with a goal of enhancing the European legal integration. The idea of an ELI was inspired by the activities of the American Law Institute (ALI), founded in 1923 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Similar to the ALI, the ELI has individual members (Fellows) and Individual and Institutional Observers.
Former Member of the European Parliament Diana Wallis was elected as the new President of the European Law Institute on 6 September 2013, succeeding Sir Francis Jacobs.
In Europe, the idea to found a European Law Institute had been discussed for more than a decade. Two main initiatives were launched: In October 2008, a group of scholars from leading European law schools and research institutes convened in Brussels to discuss the project. Follow-up meetings took place in Prague, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Frankfurt. In March 2010, the Association for a European Law Institute (ELIA) was founded, which served to initiate and coordinate a Europe-wide debate. By 2011, the ELIA had around 250 members, academics from more than 100 European law faculties as well as judges, many of them from Member States' supreme courts, and legal professionals.
An independent initiative towards the foundation of a European Law Institute was taken by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Four colleagues from the EUI launched a conference in April 2010, inviting many leading figures from European institutions and networks to discuss the idea.
Due to a great deal of overlap between the ELIA and the EUI initiatives, they came to be seen as possibly competing, prompting an inquiry into whether the two initiatives can be brought together and whether common guidelines can be developed for the establishment of a European Law Institute. A meeting in that regard was held on the premises of the Hamburg Max Planck Institute on 22 and 23 June 2010. Following the Hamburg meeting, a joint project group was formed by the ELIA and EUI initiatives and further networks and stakeholder organizations. A first meeting of this joint project group and of observers from the European Commission was held in Vienna on 23 and 24 November 2010 on the premises of the Austrian Supreme Court.
The resulting Vienna Memorandum provided a roadmap for the establishment of the European Law Institute.
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