Giorgi Chkheidze

Giorgi Chkheidze is a lawyer and Chief of Party of the USAID Rule of Law Program. 

Giorgi is former Chair of the Board of the Open Society Georgian Foundation. He is also a former Executive Director (2009-2010) and Chairman (2006-2008) of the of the Georgian Young lawyers’ Association (GYLA). He has been a member of governing (executive) boards of GYLA and the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy. In 2009, Giorgi served as the Deputy Public Defender (Ombudsman) of Georgia. 

Giorgi has served as an invited expert-member of the National Preventive Mechanism Against Torture (created based on UN OPCAT). He was the head of the International Legal Relations Department of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. Giorgi also served as the head of the Staff of the Legal Committee of the Parliament of Georgia and the head of the Legal Department of the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia. 

Giorgi graduated from the law faculty of Tbilisi State University and did his LL.M. in International Human Rights Law at the University of the West of England as a British Chevening scholar.  He was a John Smith Fellow in 2009. 

He has several publications in the field of human rights and lectures on fundamental human rights and criminal justice.