Traditional Law in Georgia

This issue of the CAD examines the role of traditional law in Georgia. Stéphane Voell argues that despite a new political environment created by the strengthening of the state administration and the work of law-enforcement agencies after the Rose Revolution, traditional law remains an important frame of reference for the Svan population. Lavrenti Janiashvili studies the practice of traditional law in Svaneti in Soviet times as an important part of Georgia's legal history that sheds light on contemporary practices. Elke Kamm examines the practice of bride kidnapping in Tetritskaro, Georgia and explains that it was considered by Georgian ethnographers as an alternative form of marriage that allowed men to marry without going into debt and still occurs nowadays, though rarely. Natia Jabaladze studies the custom of blood feud among Svan migrants in the region of Kvemo-Kartli in Georgia and observes that this tradition remains more alive in self-representation among Svans than in practice.