ABSTRACT
The next wave of post-war adversarial reform has resulted in the almost complete destruction of the concept of ‘socialist legality’ in the former Soviet bloc and China. As in Latin America, change has been rapid and is being accomplished under intense pressure from the US and western Europe. However, despite competition from moderate forms of European inquisition-process, it is AngloAmerican adversariality which has dominated the reform agenda. This dominance to some extent reflects the balance of influence amongst the donor countries, whose national expert groups have each been vocal in promoting the virtues of their own model systems. Fincke has argued that the dominance of US criminological writing in the post-war period permitted English-speaking lawyers with access to this material to enjoy high status and to set the agenda for the reform debate (1992, p.199). Equally, since US financial support for the Perestroika programme was crucial, it was inevitable that north American forms of procedure should figure significantly in discussion. This influence was reinforced by aggressive marketing by the US Department of Justice and its joint initiative with the American Bar Association, the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI1) which was founded in 1990. CEELI’s impact on Russia and eastern Europe has been dramatic (Diehm 2001, p.2) and according to the Executive Director, Elizabeth Anderson:
In the course of its 13-year history, more than 5,000 judges and lawyers have worked with CEELI to provide more than $180 million in pro bono legal assistance to the region. CEELI has advised governments and parliamentarians on more than 465 laws and constitutions.2
