The May 17 incident and its subsequent developments should be discussed in two paradigms: the legal and the socio-cultural. The legal aspect relates to the state, whereas the socio-cultural is linked to society, in particular the existing social and cultural structures.
For eight years, long before the 2008 war, I served as Ambassador of Georgia to Washington. At the time, the main issue at hand was capacity-building: to think in terms of policies, allocating competencies and tasks, preparing the normative ground, pinpointing
On June 5th, the New York Times was running an article entitled “Taliban Attack Kills 7 Georgian Soldiers in Afghanistan.”
Despite the title, the article said very little about the circumstances surrounding this tragic event; it focused mostly on an analysis
What happened in October?
The October 2012 parliamentary election gave Georgia a chance for normal development. Needless to say, a government assuming power through violence cannot be democratic. Thus, defeating the National Movement through the ballot box instead of
When thinking about the crucial events of the year 2012, what comes to my mind first is the prison abuse scandal. The released videos depicting the various acts of torture and ill-treatment
The May 17 events revealed confrontation between church and secularism as one of the main public conflicts in any political system. Public conflict is a matter of public concern. Public opinion on this issue is divided into opposite positions, various social groups
These shameful events posed new questions (or rather question marks) for the Georgian democracy. The country has achieved a lot since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has effectively fought crime and corruption; it has managed to change its government through peaceful
There are no accurate statistics about the number of homeless families living in Georgia.
The homeless people have been particularly active in reminding the state of their existence following the October 2012 elections, when they occupied a number of buildings in Tbilisi, staged
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows to Georgia fell significantly from the second quarter of 2012, closing the year 23% down from 2011. After several years of steady recovery, this is a serious concern for policy makers. Georgia’s domestic capital market is
On April 2, 2012 GYLA held a presentation of trial monitoring results focused on criminal cases in the city courts of Tbilisi and Kutaisi. The trial monitoring was conducted within the framework of the USAID funded Judicial Independence and Legal Empowerment Project