Abkhazia

Abkhazia's Law on Copyright and Related Rights took effect on July 1, 2006. It lists what is not an object of copyright, including official documents and state symbols and signs such as flags, emblems, orders and bank notes.¹ Commons says nothing shows that this list reaches postage stamps, so it assumes they are copyrighted until something official says otherwise.¹ The same law protects a work for the author's life plus 70 years, or 70 years from lawful publication when the work is anonymous.¹ Commons' note on stamps names neither term, so the archive has no date to count from and answers No for every stamp.

Abkhazia was part of the Russian Empire and later an autonomous republic within Soviet Georgia; Commons says it gained de facto independence in 1992 and 1993 without international recognition.¹ Commons notes that WIPO did not list Abkhazia as of 2018 and that United States copyright guidance does not mention it, and presumes that Abkhazian works are protected in the United States on the terms that apply to Georgia.¹ Stamps in Abkhazia's name have appeared since 1993.² English Wikipedia says most of them are believed to be bogus issues printed abroad for collectors, and that the Universal Postal Union does not recognize them.³ Commons' note does not separate stamps issued by the Abkhaz authorities from labels made abroad in Abkhazia's name, and the archive treats that question as open.