Human Rights and the Russian Federation

The Russian Federation was a member of the Council of Europe from 1996 to 2022. It was excluded on 16 March 2022 - see the Council of Europe's announcement.

The European Court of Human Rights has asked the Russian Federation to respond to allegations that it was responsible for 24 political assassinations (or attempted assassinations) between 2003 and 2020.

The story is covered in an excellent post by Joshua Rozenberg - HERE. 

As Mr Rozenberg notes - "Article 58 of the convention makes it clear that leaving the Council of Europe — and therefore the human rights convention — does not release a state from its existing obligations."

We hope

that any findings by the European Court of Human Rights will bring some comfort to the families of those targeted and some satisfaction to the authorities in Ukraine but, as Mr Rozenberg comments, there seems to be no way that a ruling of the human rights court can be enforced against a state that is no longer a party to the human rights convention.

Previous posts on this blog include

Litvinenko Inquiry - 21 January 2016 

A serious attack within the United Kingdom - 13 March 2018