Georgia: “Foreign Agents” Laws Threaten Civil Society and Breach Human Rights Commitments, Joint UPR Submission Warns

Despite making strong human rights pledges during its 2021 UPR — including support for 257 of 285 recommendations, such as those calling for a safe environment for human rights defenders — Georgia has witnessed a marked decline in democratic governance and fundamental freedoms. In recent years, the government has introduced a series of legislative and institutional measures aimed at restricting civil society, silencing dissent, and curbing independent media.

Central to this crackdown is a package of so-called “foreign agents” legislation adopted between 2024 and 2025. This includes the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and recent amendments to the Law on Grants. While framed by authorities as transparency measures, in practice these laws enable the harassment, stigmatisation, and criminalisation of human rights defenders and civil society organisations.

These laws impose excessive registration and reporting obligations, require public labelling of organisations as “foreign agents”, and introduce administrative and criminal penalties. They also severely restrict access to international funding — a vital resource for many CSOs — creating an environment of fear, self-censorship, and operational disruption. These restrictions constitute a serious violation of the rights to freedom of association and expression, protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Although the legislation is still in its early stages of enforcement, its chilling effect is already being felt. Civil society organisations report increased public hostility, operational barriers, and growing risks to the rights of HRDs and the communities they support.

Georgia’s repressive legal shift not only threatens the country’s democratic institutions but also represents a direct failure to uphold the UPR commitments it voluntarily accepted in 2021.

Further analysis of Georgia’s human rights record and detailed recommendations for the upcoming UPR are available in the full submission.