Since the populist “Georgian Dream” party won the parliamentary election in Georgia in 2024 with an absolute majority, the country has increasingly slipped into autocratic structures. Media professionals are prevented from doing their work and NGOs are stigmatized as enemies of the state. But the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association will not be intimidated, emphasizes its chairwoman Tamar Oniani. "Advocating for justice in Georgia means fighting for our country. We are a human rights organization. We stand by people when their rights are threatened. We use the law to protect their freedom, their dignity, their voice."
For this work, the Georgian organization will be honored with one of four Right Livelihood Awards this year. The prize has been awarded by a Swedish foundation for more than 40 years to people who are committed to environmental protection, peace and human rights.
For the foundation's managing director, Ole von Uexküll, the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association represents a situation that many countries around the world are currently experiencing. "They provide free legal assistance to people. In the last 30 years in 1.5 million cases, out of a population of 3.7 million people. They are a backbone of democracy in Georgia. Especially now that the country is taking big steps towards autocracy."
The Right Livelihood Foundation has selected two more award winners and another women-led organization this year. The fact that there are no men among the award winners was not a conscious decision by the jury, says von Uexküll. "From the nominations we receive from around the world, it is clear that many women are doing important work on justice issues. So it is only natural that this year it is only women and women-led organizations."
Attention to problems through AI
Human rights lawyer Jalila Haider from the Hazara ethnic minority is honored for her work on human rights in Pakistan. “She campaigns against discrimination and oppression that many minorities in the country suffer from and to which she herself was exposed,” explains von Uexküll.
Another award goes to the organization Rural Women's Assembly, a movement of more than 178,000 small farmers from eleven countries in southern Africa. An Ethiopian-born computer scientist from the USA is also being honored with a Right Livelihood Award.
The jury chose Timnit Gebru, says von Uexküll, "because she is an extremely prominent critic of the power relations behind the AI development that we are currently experiencing. She criticized the problems of large language models early on, for example the environmental destruction they cause and the prejudices they reproduce."
“Make sure your voice counts”
All award winners have one thing in common, says the managing director of the Right Livelihood Foundation. They built power from below - a key to solving global crises. "The vast majority of people don't want climate change, a dismantling of democracy, or uncontrolled AI systems. But most people see no way to influence these dangerous trends. Showing how people can organize together and ensure that their own voice counts is incredibly effective."
And entirely in the spirit of the Right Livelihood Award. The German-Swedish journalist Jakob von Uexküll founded the prize in 1980. He actually wanted to award it as part of the Nobel Prizes. But the Nobel Foundation did not allow this - which is why the prize is also called the Alternative Nobel Prize in German-speaking countries.
