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With the support from USAID, CIL organized a public lecture on legal capacity of persons with disabilities at 12 pm, December 20 at Tbilisi State University delivered by Professor Gerard Quinn: 'Legal Capacity Reform: Giving Power Back to the People - a 21st Century Agenda’. Prof. Quinn talked about modern approaches to personhood and its implications for the shift away from guardianship toward supported decision-making for persons with disabilities (including older people).  He referred to the next-generation human rights approaches that go far beyond the question of how to regularize limitations on people's legal capacity and more on positive measures to restore voice to people over their on lives.  He also linked the reform on legal capacity to the right to live in the community and referred to some recent law reform in Europe.

Gerard Quinn is a professor of law at the National University of Ireland (Galway).  He holds degrees in political science (B.A.) and law (LL.B.) from the National University, is a qualified barrister-at-law (B.L., Kings’ Inns) and a graduate of Harvard Law School (LL.M., S.J.D.). He was he first Irish student to graduate with a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School (on law in conflicted societies). He has had a varied career in public service as well. He currently sits on the scientific committee (advisory board) of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (Vienna).  He has worked as a temporary civil servant in the European Commission (EU) on equality policy and also rose to be First Vice President of the Council of Europe’s Social Rights Committee (a treaty monitoring body on economic and social rights in Europe).  He has directed large studies for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and led the delegation of Rehabilitation International during the drafting of the new UN treaty on the rights of persons with disabilities.