UN Adopts Resolution about Georgia’s Occupied Territories
By Tea Mariamidze
Monday, March 25
Human Rights Council of the United Nations has adopted a resolution named Cooperation with Georgia, at its 40th session in Geneva.
The resolution reiterates support for Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.
The Council also expresses serious concern at the continuous process of installation of barbed wire fences and different artificial barriers along the administrative boundary line in two breakaway regions of Georgia - Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In addition, the resolution recognizes the efforts of the Government of Georgia for strengthening democracy, the rule of law and human rights in the country.
Also, the Council welcomes the cooperation of the Government of Georgia with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other human rights, regional and international mechanisms.
The Commission calls for "immediate and unimpeded access" to be given to the Office of the High Commissioner and international and regional human rights mechanisms to both occupied regions.
Vladimir Konstantinidi, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that “the Council express serious concern about the cases of discrimination, violation of the right to life, deprivation of liberty, illegal detention and abduction, violation of property rights and the right to health, as well as restriction of the right to get education in the mother tongue and demolition of IDPs’ houses in breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.”
He noted that the Council underlined the importance of the Geneva International Talks, launched on the basis of the 12 August 2008 ceasefire agreement and expressed concern over the fact that IDPs and refugees were still unable to safely return to their homes.
The Spokesperson added that this year new members of the Council Fiji and the Bahamas supported the resolution while the Philippines changed its position from negative to positive.
Georgia has been a member of the UN Human Rights Council since 2006. The first resolution about Georgia’s occupied regions was adopted by the Council in 2017.
