Levan Alexidze Foundation dedicated a webinar – Protection of Internally Displaced Persons: International Legal Aspects of a Right to Return and Georgia’s National Policy – to the celebration of Independence Day of Georgia. The importance of the Resolutions adopted annually starting from 2008 by the UN General Assembly regarding the Status of internally displaced persons and refugees from Abkhazia, Georgia, and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia, Georgia was highlighted in condemning forcible demographic changes within the occupied territories of Georgia. Particular emphasis was made on the right of dignified and safe return of all internally displaced persons and refugees regardless of ethnicity to their homes throughout Georgia, including in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia. The discussion was concerted around the importance of the recurrently adopted resolutions for the advancement of security and protection of human rights in the occupied regions of Georgia as well as the importance of the comprehensive annual report by the Secretary General on the implementation of the resolutions and situation of IDPs in Georgia. The issues related to the social-economic conditions of IDPs and their integration measures as well as respective policies were among the topics discussed in the framework of the webinar.

It was highlighted that Academician Levan Alexidze’s very initiative and his leadership led to the international legal qualification of the acts accompanying the aggressive separatism of 1990-ies. The reports drafted and conclusions reached by the State Commission of Georgia for the Investigation of the Policy of Ethnic Cleansing/Genocide carried out against Georgian population in Abkhazia, Georgia under Professor Levan Alexidze’s leadership had been submitted to the United Nations Security Council throughout years and the respective reports had been disseminated as UN documents.