Work in progress: the Guiding Principles in Georgia

Conflict-induced internally displaced persons (IDP) have always enjoyed special protection under Georgian law. In 1996, two years prior to the launch of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, Georgia enacted its own law on internal displacement. Intended to protect those who had been forced to flee from the two secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the early 1990s, the law conferred a special legal status on IDPs, entitling them to receive benefits including a monthly allowance from the state. The launch of the Guiding Principles in 1998 did not evoke an immediate paradigm change, yet it had a tangible impact. The government quickly accepted the Principles as the international normative framework on which national and local action should be based. In 2000, the government adapted its national law on internal displacement, removing several legal provisions that hindered IDPs from fully accessing their rights as Georgian citizens.