Since its declaration of independence on April 1991, Georgia’s sovereignty has been
challenged by civil war and by secession attempts on the part of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia. Negotiations on the reintegration of these two entities through federalization
have failed. The Russian Federation, the United Nations (UN), and the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe were involved in a series of negotiations on
a federal division of powers between Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, but these
negotiations did not achieve practical results. The positions between the Georgian
government and the Abkhaz authorities concerning the status of Abkhazia have been
moving even further apart.
Negotiations between the Georgian government and the authorities of Abkhazia and
South Ossetia have been focused thus far on the theoretical nature of sovereignty and the
distinction between federation and confederation. They have not included any concrete
views on institution building. This paper makes an attempt to go beyond these abstract
discussions by presenting two possible models of a federalization of Georgia that would
include Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It analyzes the practical consequences that a federal
model of government would have on foreign policymaking. The authors of this paper
have discussed these federation models with Georgian and Abkhaz officials, politicians,
scholars, journalists, and representatives of the nongovernmental organization (NGO)
community.1
This working paper reflects some of the results of those discussions.