Fulbright takes Ballard to Tbilisi, Georgia

Professor will research post-conflict property restitution

Prof. Megan Ballard will spend her sabbatical year researching post-conflict property restitution in Georgia and  Colombia.

Professor Megan Ballard will spend her sabbatical year studying post-conflict property restitution in the Republic of Georgia, and Colombia.

At first glance, the countries of Georgia and Colombia wouldn't appear to have much in common save for a few vowels. Georgia was a Soviet republic from 1922 to 1991 and today its population numbers just 4.5 million. Colombia, on the other hand, has a population that is ten times larger, and it has been independent for over a century.

But Gonzaga Law professor Megan Ballard hopes to find meaningful similarities between the two — similarities that could prove valuable in the research component of her recently awarded Fulbright grant to Georgia. She now counts herself among several Gonzaga faculty members to have attained the honor in recent years.

A two-part sabbatical

Ballard will be dividing her sabbatical year into two phases. For the first, she'll travel to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to fulfill her Fulbright requirements. There she will teach a course titled "An Introduction to American Law and Legal Procedures" at Tbilisi State University, the country’s leading academic institution. She will also conduct a fact-finding mission that will involve interviewing governmental officials, researching legislation, and speaking with Tbilisi-based non-governmental agencies (NGOs).

Afterwards she will journey to Calí and Bogota, having been awarded a Gonzaga Research Council grant that complements a longstanding Twinning Agreement, a collaborative exchange between the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus and the Jesuit Province of Colombia. Ballard participated in a Twinning Agreement exchange last summer and spent four weeks at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana campus in Calí.

"My time in Colombia will be shorter than in Georgia. I'll likely be there just for a month, and I will not be teaching a course. The focus will be research," Ballard says. "I need to explore what's currently happening with restitution there. Colombia, unlike Georgia, has actually started to implement property restitution, and many would argue that Colombia is not in a post-conflict state yet. Active armed conflict continues to occur in Colombia."

National distinctions may prove fruitful

While any shared characteristics between the two countries would be a rich vein to mine, it may be that differences like these will be the most fruitful for Ballard's research.

"At this point my research goals are somewhat flexible because I'm not sure what I'll find on the ground," she says. "At the orientation program for Fulbright grantees, one of the main points was that it's good to have an idea of the scope of your research, but if you stick with that scope, chances are something's wrong.

"I've just published an article in the Berkeley Journal of International Law that explores the United Nations guidelines on property restitution. In theory, the idea of restoring property rights sounds as though it's progressive and would lead to stability in a postwar society. The reality is that such a system of property restitution cannot occur without significant international involvement."

"This is part of my criticism of the United Nations model. There's one set of principles that a UN sub-commission has established to implement post-conflict property restitution. And I think the conditions vary dramatically depending on whether the conflict was based in ethnic divisions or a class-based struggle, which some might say is part of the basis of Colombia's conflict. To me, peddling one model of post-conflict property restitution to different post-conflict societies may not be the best way of solidifying political, economic or social stability. Furthermore, doing so based on the imposition of foreign legal models runs the risk of undermining development of the rule of law.

"I'm not suggesting we dismiss these guidelines entirely, I'm just suggesting we ought to recognize the potential risks involved. But it is a fairly theoretical article, and now I have the opportunity to explore the reality in Georgia and Colombia."

"I'll be networking with beekeepers there," says the certified apiarist; at home she tends more than 100,000 honeybees. "In fact, many of the domestic bees in the United States originally came from the Caucuses. They're not native to North America.”

"Exploring these global issues related to property will enhance my understanding and teaching of U.S. property law. I also teach a Comparative Law course at Gonzaga. I've spoken with faculty at Javeriana who teach Comparative Law, and there's been discussion of videoconferencing between our two different classes. I’ll also explore that possibility at Tbilisi State University."

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