From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

Georgia From Solidarity to Solutions: The Government Response to Internal Displacement in Georgia
the training on disaster preparedness addressed
specific issues regarding displacement is unclear.
Training of Central Election Commission officials at the
central, district and precinct level as well as MRA staff
on IDP voting rights and procedures was recommended
following the legislative amendments to the Electoral
Code to enable IDPs to fully exercise their right to vote 70
(see Benchmark 9b); information was not available on
whether training has occurred.
5. Ensure a Legal Framework
for Upholding IDPs’ Rights
Does national legislation address the
specific needs arising in situations of
internal displacement and support IDPs
to realize their rights?
Since 1992—and therefore shortly after internal displacement
first occurred in Georgia—the government
has issued more than 200 normative acts with provisions
directly relevant to internal displacement. These
include normative acts for which the scope of application
is limited to IDPs as well as acts that have a general
scope of application but have specific relevance to the
situation of IDPs. 71
In the first category of IDP-specific legislation, the most
notable example is that Georgia counts among the first
countries in the world to have enacted a specific law to
address internal displacement. The Law of Georgia on
Forcibly Displaced Persons—Persecuted Persons was
adopted on 28 June 1996, and it has been amended on
a number of occasions, most recently on 25 October
2010. As stated in its preamble, the law “determines the
70 Erin Mooney and Balkees Jarrah, The Voting Rights of
Internally Displaced Persons: The OSCE Region (Brookings
Institution–Johns Hopkins SAIS Project on Internal
Displacement, November, 2004), p. 41.
71 UNHCR, Gap Analysis, 2009, p. 8. For a detailed analysis of
the plethora of normative acts adopted from 1992 through
to the end of 2001, see Chkeidze and Korkelia, “Report on
the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the
Law of Georgia.”
193
legal status of IDPs, grounds and rules for recognition as
an IDP, granting, suspension, termination and deprivation
of IDP status, legal, economic and social guarantees
as well as IDPs’ rights and obligations.” 72
Whereas the definition of “internally displaced persons”
elaborated in the Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement is simply a descriptive definition, under
Georgian legislation the definition of “IDP” or, more
specifically of “forcibly displaced persons–persecuted
persons” confers a specific legal status. According to
Article 1 of the law, a “forcibly displaced person–persecuted
person” (also commonly referred to as an “IDP” 73 )
is a citizen of Georgia or stateless person permanently
residing in Georgia who was forced
to leave their place of habitual residence and
became displaced within the territory of
Georgia due to the threat to her/his life, health
or freedom or to the life, health and freedom
of her/his family members, as a result of aggression
of a foreign power, internal conflict or
mass violation of human rights.
There is no other national legislation that defines other
categories of IDPs. National legislation in Georgia
therefore defines IDPs more narrowly than in the
Guiding Principles by excluding IDPs who were forced
to flee their homes or places of habitual residence due
to causes other than those mentioned, including natural
disasters. However, it should be noted that although
persons internally displaced by disasters in Georgia are
not formally recognized as IDPs and given IDP status,
the government does recognize and act upon its respon-
72 Government of Georgia, Law on Forcibly Displaced
Persons–Persecuted Persons.
73 This term is commonly understood, both in translation
as well as in state and international practice in Georgia, to
mean “IDP.” Indeed, this is confirmed in the Government
of Georgia, Decree No. 47 of 2 February 2007, “Approving
of the State Strategy for Internally Displaced Persons–
Persecuted Persons.”