The Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law (CEDEM) is a think-and-act tank that has been working in the Ukrainian public sector since 2005, focusing on developing independent media, civil society and building the rule of law in Ukraine.

Our mission is to promote the development of a society of active and responsible citizens.

In modern Ukraine, the level of activism is high, but so should be the level of responsibility. That is why the focus on responsibility is most important in our work. 

Our values are responsibility, proactivity, effectiveness and unbiasedness. We are not sitting back and waiting, instead we are actualizing important problems in society, we take responsibility to develop a plan to solve them, to advocate for it and to achieve results. We are focused on the result rather than the process. We are impartial neither businesses nor political parties determine our goals and areas of activity.

Pursuing our mission and being guided by our values, we have focused our work on three areas: rule of law, independent media and civil society.

To this end, we develop and advocate for quality legislation, protect freedom of expression, provide unbiased legal expertise and advice to journalists, implement educational programs for diverse audiences, support and develop community initiatives, strengthen the organizational capacity of civil society organizations, inform citizens about their rights and responsibilities in times of war, and work to promote accountability of government and the rule of law. 

CEDEM has been cooperating with Meta on a number of issues, both blocking accounts for hate speech and others. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, our lawyers have been helping bloggers, opinion leaders, politicians and other users to return blocked content and personal profiles if their account was hacked or blocked by mistake.

We teach citizens to request access to public information, but we do not support those who thoughtlessly ask for thousands of pages just to obstruct the activities of a state authority. Being a responsible citizen means taking care of one’s own information hygiene, checking information before sharing it on social media, and reading verified resources. Among other things, being responsible also means being a driver and a passenger who is concerned about their own safety and the safety of others. 

We are a part of society and it is on us that it depends. We are working to shape it. A society of active and responsible citizens means that citizens must be active and at the same time be aware of their responsibilities. 

Before 2016, CEDEM was called the Media Law Institute. You can watch a video on the transformation from the Media Law Institute to the Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law here.