International Conference “Private Autonomy as a Fundamental Principle of Private Law”

An international conference “Private Autonomy as a Fundamental Principle of Private Law” was opened at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU) on November 1. Georgian lawyers and their colleagues from Germany, Eastern European, Caucasian and Central Asian countries participated in the conference.

“A very important international conference on private law was held at the Tbilisi State University. Our university has a long-time collaboration with the German Max Planck Institute. The conference was held with the support of GIZ. It is an important issue for Georgia, especially as our legislation is being harmonized with the EU norms and laws. It is an excellent format for strengthening our theoretical knowledge,” Rector Giorgi Sharvashidze said.

Dean of the TSU Faculty of Law, Tamar Zarandia said that “the conference is held every three years and it is dedicated to the autonomy of the will, as the key principle of private law. The conference is especially important for Georgia because private legal relations are actually built on the autonomy of the will. Very interesting papers have been presented and discussions will also be very interesting.”

“The conference is dedicated to private autonomy as one of the key principles of private law in many countries of the world. It is especially important in the countries like Georgia, which plan to join the European Economic Area. Georgia has signed the Association Agreement with the European Union. It requires the establishment of better fundamental principles in the country. One of such principles is autonomy,” Prof. Dr. Jürgen Basedow of the Max Planck Institute said.

The event was organized by the TSU Faculty of Law in partnership with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and with the support of German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ). The first conference was held in 2012 and its results were published in Germany. The second conference on property rights, property and legal stability was held in Tbilisi in 2015 and its results were published in a format of a quadrilingual collection at the Tbilisi State University.