February 1997 Vol. 9, No. 3 (D)
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
A Review of the Compliance of the Russian Federation with
Council of Europe Commitments and Other Human Rights Obligations
on the First Anniversary of its Accession to the Council of Europe
SUMMARY 2
RECOMMENDATIONS 4
RUSSIA'S HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS AS A MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE AND MECHANISMS AND EFFORTS TO ENFORCE COMPLIANCE 5
VIOLATIONS OF ACCESSION PRINCIPLES 9
Death Penalty 9
Violations of International Humanitarian Law: Chechnya 10
Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment 13
The Penal System 13
Chechnya 15
Violation of Freedom of Movement 15
Violations of the Rights of Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons, and Migrants 18
State-Sponsored Discrimination 19
Gender 19
Ethnicity 21
APPENDIX A: Excerpts from Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Opinion No. 193 (1996) on Russia's Request for Membership of the Council of Europe 25
APPENDIX B: Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Order No. 508 (1995) on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe 29
APPENDIX C: Letter from Human Rights Watch/Helsinki to Council of Europe regarding Russia's Noncompliance with Death Penalty Moratorium Obligations 31
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 33
On February 28, 1996, the Russian Federation became a full member of the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organization based in Strasbourg, France, which, among other goals, aims to protect human rights.1 Accession to the Council of Europe heightened expectations that the Russian Federation would take concrete steps to improve its poor human rights record in the year that has followed. However, on the first anniversary of its accession to the Council of Europe, it is clear that the Russian Federation has made little progress in fulfilling its new obligations and indeed, in some cases, has flagrantly violated them. It continued to perpetrate attacks on civilians and other violations of international humanitarian law in Chechnya through August 1996, when the Khasavyurt agreement ended twenty months of war in Chechnya. It continued through August 1996 to execute prisoners condemned to death, in violation of its obligation to institute a death penalty moratorium from the day of its accession to the Council of Europe. It failed to ratify within a year of accession several significant human rights conventions and protocols2 and generally failed to translate legislative reform into practice in addressing long-standing abuses such as appalling and even "torturous" prison conditions,3 police brutality, freedom of movement, deprivation of the rights of refugees, and discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and gender. Responsibility for human rights violations and for failing to uphold its commitments and obligations as a member of the Council of Europe lies squarely on the shoulders of the government of the Russian Federation. However, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki is also concerned that the Council of Europe has not used its maximum influence to secure human rights improvements in the Russian Federation, one of its newest member states,4 and in some cases has accepted pledges of reform in lieu of actual reform where such trust was clearly not warranted.
Accession has prompted the Russian government to take some promising steps to improve its human rights record, for which both the Russian government and the Council of Europe can rightfully take credit.5 Indeed, in some cases, the Russian parliament agreed to uphold some human rights obligations only when the Council of Europe insisted on them, although these same obligations were already mandated in domestic legislation. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki appreciates these efforts by the Russian government and the resources and expert attention the Council of Europe has devoted to evaluating Russia's human rights record and pushing for compliance. Among other sustained and coordinated efforts, the Council of Europe monitors and investigates abuse, condemns serious violations where they have persisted, crafts recommendations for compliance, shares human rights expertise with counterparts in Russia, supports nongovernmental organizations in the field of human rights in Russia, and engages the Russian government in implementing required improvements.
At the same time, the Council of Europe offered the Russian Federation membership before adequate guarantees for improvement on some issues were secured, and in some cases failed adequately to censure and impose sanctions against its new member as soon as flagrant non-compliance became apparent. The Council of Europe failed to condemn and take action to combat abuse it was well aware of, in some cases in contradiction to the findings of its own experts.6 The most obvious example of this is that no public threats of action are known to have been made by the Council of Europe even when the Russian government continued to carry out executions at least through August 2, 1996, fully six months after it had committed to instituting a de jure moratorium. (Russian authorities assert that a de facto moratorium has been in place since August 1996, but as of this writing has still not instituted one de jure.)
As a rule, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki is concerned by the degree to which the Council of Europe's human rights admission requirements are negotiable, rather than standardized, leaving the process vulnerable to political, security, and other considerations which can obscure human rights goals. This in turn belittles the primacy of respect for human rights. As a broader issue, we are also concerned because the Council of Europe's failure to secure and enforce adequate yardsticks of reform prior to offering membership weakens the Council of Europe's perceived commitment to its fundamental principles of democracy and respect for human rights; this, in turn, sends a message to member nations and applicant states7 alike that the Council of Europe is sometimes willing to turn a blind eye to abuse. Evidence of this dangerous trend is that, in violation of their accession obligations, fully one-fifth of the Council of Europe's membership have still not instituted a de jure death penalty moratorium.8 In general, we believe that the Council of Europe's influence is often squandered because it emphasizes achieving compliance after accession, rather than as a precondition to it.
While appreciating the difficulties faced by the Russian government in rapidly bringing its human rights practices into full compliance with European standards, we are distressed by the slowness of the reform and by serious backsliding in some areas. At the same time, we are hopeful that the Russian Federation will be able to meet its human rights obligations more rapidly through encouragement and intense pressure. We believe that much of the serious and widespread human rights abuses that persist in the Russian Federation - and in other Council of Europe member states - can and should be redressed with greater insistence from the Council of Europe.
Human Rights Watch/Helsinki takes the opportunity of the anniversary of Russia's accession to the Council of Europe to assess the Russian government's progress toward ending the most severe human rights abuses and to make specific recommendations for achieving more rapid compliance with its international human rights obligations.9 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki further takes this opportunity to evaluate the Council of Europe's success at achieving its own human rights agenda and suggests steps to more effectively exert its influence with the Russian authorities to achieve measurable human rights improvements. This report therefore seeks to identify areas in which the Russian Federation is falling short of, or actively flouting, its human rights commitments as a member of the Council of Europe, as well as those enshrined in domestic Russian or international human rights and humanitarian law.
The documentation presented in this report primarily reflects the findings of investigations conducted by Human Rights Watch10 and refers to conclusions made by other human rights organizations. It is not intended to be comprehensive of all of the human rights violations currently carried out or insufficiently addressed by the Russian government. We also note that the Council of Europe is seeking Russia's compliance with military, security, law enforcement, political, ecological, and cultural issues that fall outside Human Rights Watch's mandate and which therefore will not be treated here (see Appendix A).
We recognize that the causes of some violations currently committed by the Russian government are sufficiently complex that they may require more than a single year to be fully corrected, and we welcome efforts by the Council of Europe, other intergovernmental bodies, individual governments, and nongovernmental organizations to encourage and rigorously to monitor Russia's efforts to comply with longer-term goals for improvement. However, a year is clearly enough time for Russia to take some basic steps, such as instituting a legally binding death penalty moratorium, ratifying fundamental human rights instruments on the Council of Europe's recommendations, and beginning serious efforts to prosecute crimes such as the murder of civilians by its armed forces. We urge the Council of Europe to press for these urgently needed reforms and to back its demands with credible threats of suspension of membership privileges and rights, in accordance with Parliamentary Assembly Order No. 508 (1995); Human Rights Watch/Helsinki welcomes efforts to date to do so. We hope that a documented enumeration of major areas of human rights concern will aid in this process.
1 The Council of Europe was formed on May 5, 1949, and currently consists of forty member states, including Estonia, Lithuania (1993), Latvia, Moldova, Ukraine (1995), and the Russian Federation (1996).
2 The European Convention on Human Rights (signed but not ratified); its Protocols Nos. 1, 2, 4, 7, and 11 (signed but not ratified) and Protocol No. 6 (not signed); the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (signed but not ratified); the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (signed but not ratified); European Charter on Local Self-Government (signed but not ratified); the Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (not signed).
3 The Special Rapporteur's report is contained in United Nations document E/CN.4/1995/34/Add.1, p. 19. See "Torture: Penal System" below.
4 The newest member is Croatia, which joined on November 6, 1996.
5 Since 1992, the Russian Federation has made progress in bringing its legislative acts and institutional capacities for addressing human rights concerns into conformity with European standards. Notable are Russia's adoption of a new constitution, criminal code, amendments to the code of criminal procedure, the law on state secrets, the law on entry into and exit from the Russian Federation, and the law on information. Russia signed the European Convention on Human Rights, including Protocol No. 6 relating to the death penalty upon accession to the Council of Europe, but as of this writing has not ratified it.
6 See opinion of legal experts of October 7, 1994.
7 The Republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan have submitted applications for membership and currently are under review.
8 As of June 26, 1996, these countries were Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Malta, Poland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
9 "Russia" or the adjective "Russian" may be used interchangeably in this report to refer to the Russian Federation or Russia.
10 The subdivisions of the organization that contributed documentation to this report were Human Rights Watch/Helsinki and Human Rights Watch/Women's Rights Project.