Promoting the Rule of Law in the Post-Soviet Region through State and Non-State Collaboration

A three-day symposium on the topic “The Promotion of Rule of Law in Post-Soviet Countries through the Cooperation between State and Non-State Agencies” was organized on June 12-14 of 2019, in Tbilisi, Georgia.

40 experts from Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine were participating in the symposium.

Haykuhi Harutyunyan, the president of the “Protection of Rights without Borders” NGO, who is also involved in the 2^nd working group on “Promotion of Transparent and Accountability Governance”, also participated in the event.

Each working group presented recommendation to be finalized in the report.

One of the challenges of the post-soviet countries is the establishment of the favorable environment for transparency and accountability through the active engagement of civil society. The civil society organizations play a crucial role in conducting oversight over the state authorities promoting transparency and accountability, raising corruption and inefficiency issues, which distorts the activities of the state institutions and weakens the rule of law.

The participants of the symposium were discussing how the leaders of those important changes can apply social responsibility mechanisms and get involved in formal state agencies, one of which is Open Government Partnership by promoting accountability, transparency and rule of law in the governments of post-soviet countries, as a result contributing to the Sustainable Goal 16.

The event was organized within the scope of the Project “Education, Research and Cooperation of Justice Sector” with the support of the University of South Carolina Rule of Law Collaborative (ROLC) and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) of the US State Department.