Freedom, Commerce, and Peace:
A Regional Agenda

The Cato Institute, the New Economic School of Georgia, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the Center for International Private Enterprise, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Donald and Paula Smith Family Foundation are organizing a major international conference in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Tbilisi, Georgia – October 25-27, 2006

Conference Description:

Fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, the nations of Eurasia are still struggling to build stable, secure, and prosperous social orders. The nations of the Confederation of Independent States and its periphery (the CIS+) have generated a variety of responses to the collapse of Soviet power, with a corresponding variety of outcomes. It is time to draw lessons for reformers and to share them with the people of the CIS+ who are working for civil society, limited government, and peace.

The Cato Institute, the New Economic School of Georgia, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the Center for International Private Enterprise, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Donald and Paula Smith Family Foundation are organizing a major international conference in October 2006 in Tbilisi, Georgia. The conference–Freedom, Commerce, and Peace: A Regional Agenda–will assemble, inform, and motivate a broad network of scholars, analysts, and policymakers who can further the mission of building free, stable, and prosperous legal, political, social, and economic orders.

The conference is scheduled to begin the evening of Wednesday, October 25 and conclude the evening of Friday, October 27 at the Sheraton Metechi Palace Hotel in Tbilisi. The Sheraton has excellent conference facilities and is accustomed to working with professional conferences. Conference papers will be presented and proceedings will be conducted in English, Georgian, and Russian. Some of them will be published later in three languages. Sessions will be webcast live on Cato.ru and archived for later viewing.

In Brief

The conference will bring together reformers from throughout the former Soviet Union and its formerly incorporated states and neighbors.

Cato is running this conference in cooperation with Kakha Bendukidze, the state minister for coordination of reforms of the Republic of Georgia, and the New Economic School of Georgia. Minister Bendukidze was central to organizing the Cato Institute’s 2004 Moscow conference.

This will be a significant event for the Eurasian continent. Participants will be able to share success stories of transition and mutually strengthen their resolve to undo the damage left by communism, dictatorship, and statism and create the foundations of a lasting and free social order.

Participants are expected from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic nations, the Balkans, the Southern Caucasus, and the Central Asian Republics, as well as from Mongolia, India, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, North America and Western Europe. The organizers hope to free reformers in the region from their fear of thorough change. A regional network of like-minded reformers will be helpful to those who are trying to create the institutional foundations for lasting, free, secure, and peaceful societies.

Objectives

The conference is designed to achieve three mutually supportive objectives:

1. Build a strong regional network of reformers who will share information and experiences, provide mutual support, and spread proven techniques of promoting freedom and creating and mobilizing constituencies for liberal reform;



2. Give resolution and courage to policymakers who are considering needed reforms; and



3. Assemble, discuss, and publish the stories of success–and of failure–that can provide useful guidance to liberal reformers the world over.

Program

The anticipated number of full-time conference participants is 100. The majority will come from the CIS nations, but it is expected that participants will also come from many other countries as well. The conference venue is centrally situated in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia.

Participants will include:

• Reformist policymakers from the CIS+ nations;
• Policy experts and successful and prominent liberal reformers from around the world;
• Organizers, scholars, and staff members of classical liberal think tanks;
• Journalists from the region and from major international economics and policy publications;
• Business leaders who are supportive of free markets and liberal values; and
• Classical liberal youth leaders from the region.

Sessions

Sessions will include the following:

1. Presentations and speeches by inspiring high-profile reformers with track records of success. Confirmed participants include Vernon L. Smith, Nobel Laureate in Economic Science; Mart Laar, former prime minister of Estonia; Andrei Illarionov, former chief economic policy adviser to President Putin; Vesna Škare-Ožbolt, former minister of justice of Croatia; Lajos Bokros, former minister of finance of Hungary; Kakha Bendukidze, state minister for coordination of reforms in Georgia; and others.



2. Presentations on how to craft and successfully implement reforms. Topics to be discussed are expected to include property law, banking law, commercial law, customs administration, commercial arbitration, and creation and training of an independent judiciary (to name a few).



3. Presentations on how to build constituencies for reforms, with an emphasis on combining public choice analysis with strategic thinking. Topics to be discussed are expected to include the establishment of free and independent media, campaigns to explain reforms to the public, and identifying constituencies interested in the success of free-market reforms.



4. Participatory workshops on how to establish think tanks and publications; how to work with the media to explain reforms to the public; how to utilize modern communication technologies; and how to work with students and young people.



5. A Presentation and discussion of the Economic Freedom of the World research program of the Fraser Institute including the methodology of the study and how it can be used to evaluate and promote sound public policy.



6. A public session in Tbilisi involving university students, the public, and the media.