Description

In the first electoral defeat for Georgia’s president Mikheil Saakashvili, the country’s recent parliamentary election brought to power an opposition coalition led by Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili. What does this election mean for the future of democracy and the rule of law in Georgia and the rest of the post-Soviet region? What major foreign and domestic policy changes will Ivanishvili’s government introduce? Join us for a panel discussion with journalist and Caucasus expert Thomas de Waal (senior associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Dr. Anna Dolidze (Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario), and Dr. Gavin Slade (Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto).

Thomas de Waal is a senior associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C. He is a writer and analyst on the Caucasus, Russia and the Black Sea region and the author, most recently, of The Caucasus: An Introduction (2010). In the 1990s de Waal worked as a journalist in Moscow, specializing in Russian politics and events in Chechnya. He is the co-author with Carlotta Gall of Chechnya, A Small Victorious War, (1997) and sole author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (2003), which has been translated into Armenian, Azeri and Russian. De Waal has also worked for the BBC World Service and for the NGOs, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and Conciliation Resources.

Gavin Slade is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Criminology and Socio-Legal Studies, University of Toronto. He has conducted over two years of research in Georgia and has a book out next year on the decline of organized crime since the Rose Revolution of 2003. He has also written on the independence of the judiciary, school security and the reform of the prison system.

Anna Dolidze is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Western University where she is also a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post Conflict Reconstruction. At Western Anna teaches Public International Law and Property, Law and Development. Anna is also a Joachim Herz Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of German Marshall Fund, working within a multi-disciplinary research group of towards the Academy’s annual theme: The Future of the Western Liberal Order. Anna’s research interests are in property law and theory, exploitation of global commons, law and development, and international law. Her regional expertise lies in post-communist countries. Anna has published in international law journals, peer-reviewed publications and collected volumes. Anna has also authored reports for a number of international organizations, including the United Nations Development Program and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.