A comment on the exclusion of the Russian Federation
Today is a sad day: after 26 years, the people in Russia lose the protection of their most basic human rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights ECHR, as well as access to the European Court of Human Rights. The Council of Europe loses a member state that had joined the organization in 1996 – accompanied by great hopes – and had thus committed itself to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.
The late Swiss National Councillor Ernst Mühlemann had been in charge of the accession process at that time. Although Russia fulfilled neither the political nor the legal conditions for accession, he convinced his colleagues in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) of the advantages of integrating Russia into Europe’s system of values: after decades behind the Iron Curtain, Russia was to move closer to Europe again, and Russia’s multi-ethnic population was to benefit from access to the European Court of Human Rights and all the other advantages of a democratic state based on the rule of law. Buoyed by the spirit of optimism of the 1990s, Russia became the 39th member state to join the Council of Europe in 1996.
Right from the beginning, cooperation in this multilateral environment was not easy: there were not only repeated allegations of attempts to bribe and blackmail politicians and judges, but Russia also brought a flood of cases to the European Court of Human Rights and was reluctant to implement the rulings of the Court. During the first decade of Russia’s membership, these troubles could, with a lot of good will, still be considered teething problems. When the Russian Federation took over the rotating chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers for the first time ever in 2006, however, disillusionment set in: Russia not only tried to weaken the core tasks of the Council of Europe but also blocked the entry into force of Protocol No. 14, and with it an important step in the Court’s reform, for years.
The first violent escalation of differences between two Council of Europe member States occurred in 2008 with the Caucasus war between Russia and Georgia; the second in 2014 with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which belongs to Ukraine. At the time, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe withdrew Russia’s voting rights; Russia responded by stopping payment of its membership dues. An unsatisfactory compromise eventually allowed the Russian parliamentary delegation to return to the plenary, but unease remained towards a member State whose ruler was transforming it into a dictatorship in full view of everyone.
Finally, with its war against Ukraine, Putin’s Russia was no longer acceptable to a values-based organisation like the Council of Europe: in a historic vote, members of the Parliamentary Assembly unanimously adopted a recommendation to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to expel Russia. The Committee of Ministers, consisting of the foreign ministers of the 46 member states, followed this recommendation and this morning excluded the Russian Federation with immediate effect.
A chapter in the long history of the Council of Europe has come to an end, new ones will follow – and who knows: one day, a new Russia may want to officially commit itself to European values again and return to the organisation that has been protecting and promoting these values since the end of World War II.
If so, my briefcase featuring the logo of Russia’s chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers from 2006 will be ready…
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Poto © Europe’s Human Rights Watchdog
