The European Academy of Legal Theory / Académie européenne de théorie du droit (EALT) is a network and platform of academic institutions, researchers, and legal practitioners collaborating in the promulgation and advancement of research and teaching in legal theory and their interrelations with legal practice. It forms a main platform for the exchange of legal theory education and legal practice in Europe (for a mission statement see section "Building Bridges").
EALT was founded in 1989 by the European Association for the Teaching of Legal Theory - AEETD (Association européenne pour l’enseignement de la théorie du droit) together with the Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis Bruxelles and the Katholieke Universiteit Brussel. In 2009 the cooperation between AEETD and the two partner universities in Brussels ended.
In 2010 AEETD has launched an initiative to renew its Academy together with several partner universities throughout Europe and to pool long-standing activities of AEETD like
- the summer schools and other short courses (see section "Short Courses"),
- the European Award for Legal Theory (see section "About EALT" - "Award"),
- the EALT publication series (see section "Publications"),
- its academic network in legal theory (see section "Network"),
- and the EALT consortium's new
Master's Course in Legal Theory.
EALT as consortium roof organisation, next to AEETD, involves the following partner universities and institutions contributing to the master's course and/or to the Academy's other activities:
- Goethe-University Frankfurt/Main in Germany
- Jagiellonian University Cracow in Poland
- Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Belgium
- University of Vienna in Austria
- University of Lucerne in Switzerland
- Stockholm University in Sweden
- Free University of Berlin in Germany
- University of Palermo in Italy
- University of Oxford in the UK
- European University Institute in Florence/Italy
- Sciences Po Paris in France
- University of Bologna in Italy
- Masaryk-University of Brno in Czech Republic
- University of Groningen in the Netherlands
- University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona/Spain
- Kocaeli University in Izmit/Turkey
- The joint PhD programme "Globalisation and Legal Theory" (Universities of Antwerp, Glasgow, Tilburg)
- Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt am Main/Germany
- THEMIS Geneva in Switzerland
- Central and Eastern European Forum of Legal, Political, and Social Theorists
- Interdisciplinary Association of Comparative and Private International Law (IACPIL) in Vienna/Austria