Merab Turava is a Doctor of Law and Professor at the Faculty of Law, TSU; he is Director of the Institute of Comparative and Transnational Criminal Law. He graduated from the Faculty of the State and Law at Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU) and has a PhD in Law from Humboldt University of Berlin. From 2001-2013, he was a board member of the Georgian Training Center of Justice and Head of the Department of Criminal Law; he is a member of the State Commission of Criminal Law Reform of Georgia; expert of the project – TACIS-EU; Head of the working group of the State Commission on Drafting the Georgian Code of Criminal Process; an expert for the International Committee of the Red Cross; and is an expert and the Head of the Chamber of Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Today he is Associate professor at the Faculty of Law at Tbilisi State University; was the supervisor of the research project of the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation – „For the Development of European Criminal Law in Georgia“. He is Professor at the TSU Law School, the head of the Department of Criminal Law of the TSU Law School; scholar at the faculties of law of Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Cologne. He has received a stipend from the Foundation of Humboldt University of Berlin; is member of the interagency implementation council on Criminal Justice Reform; and Director of the Institute of Comparative and Transnational Criminal Law.