PACE & Conflict in the Chechen Republic - Adopted textsDuring the debate on Chechnya at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on April 2, 2003, three documents - Resolution 1323 (2003), Recommendation 1600 (2003) and Order No 586 (2003) - were adopted. You can read their provisional versions below:
The human rights situation in the Chechen Republic
Resolution 1323 (2003) [1]
1. The Parliamentary Assembly recalls its previous resolutions and recommendations on the conflict in the Chechen Republic. It makes particular reference to Resolution 1315 (2003) on the evaluation of the prospects for a political solution of the conflict in the Chechen Republic, which remains fully valid.
2. The Assembly reiterates its belief that there cannot be peace without justice in the Chechen Republic. The human rights situation in the Republic is the key to an equitable political solution based on national reconciliation. Without a tangible improvement of the human rights situation, all attempts at pacifying the region are doomed to failure.
3. For nearly a decade now, people in the Chechen Republic have lived in constant fear. Their towns and villages have been reduced to rubble, their fields mined, their friends and relatives murdered, illegally detained, “disappeared”, kidnapped, raped, tortured and robbed. The Assembly has consistently condemned the gross human rights abuses, the violations of international humanitarian law and the war crimes committed in Chechnya by both sides to the conflict. Since the very beginning of the first conflict in Chechnya in 1994, the Assembly has called for those responsible for these acts to be brought to justice – to little avail.
4. The people of the Chechen Republic have a right not just to our pity but also to our protection. So far, everyone involved – the Russian government, administration and judicial system, the different Chechen regimes – has failed dismally to provide such protection from human rights abuses. International organisations and their member states have not managed to ensure that the victims of these abuses were granted redress, nationally or internationally.
5. The main reason why both Russian soldiers and Chechen fighters go on committing these abuses to this day is that they nearly always get away with them. The Assembly pays tribute to the courage of some brave victims, journalists, NGOs and human rights activists as well as honest officers of law-enforcement bodies who brought to light violations of law and who, despite a difficult situation, strived to restore justice. At the same time, the Assembly is disappointed that criminal investigations of gross human rights violations, including massacres of innocent Chechen civilians and targeted assassinations of local heads of administrations or their families, are nevertheless few and far between, depressingly ineffective and mostly fail to secure convictions in court (if they reach that stage, which is rare).
6. Non-judicial redress mechanisms set up by the Russian authorities, such as the Office of the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Human Rights and Freedoms in the Chechen Republic, do little more than catalogue individual complaints. While the Assembly pays tribute to the courage of the Council of Europe experts working within that Office, it asks that all measures be taken to increase the effectiveness of their current mandate as regards their possibility of influencing the human rights situation.
7. The mandate of the OSCE Assistance Group to Chechnya has not been renewed by the Russian government. The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has complained of Russia’s lack of co-operation with it. Russia has yet to authorise the publication of its reports. The recommendations of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights are implemented by Russia with long delays, if at all. The European Court of Human Rights, set up to deal with individual violations of human rights, cannot hope to cope effectively with systematic human rights abuse of the Chechen scale via individual complaints. Lamentably, no member state or group of member states has yet found the courage to lodge an interstate complaint with the Court.
8. The result is a climate of impunity which encourages further human rights violations and which denies justice to the thousands of victims, embittering the population to a point where the Chechen Republic could truly become ungovernable. If a meaningful political process is to develop in the Republic, human rights violations must stop and those responsible for past abuses must be brought to justice.
9. To ensure that human rights are respected in the Chechen Republic in the future, the Assembly recommends that:
i. Chechen fighters should immediately stop their terrorist activities and renounce all forms of crime. Any kind of support for Chechen fighters should cease immediately;
ii. Russian forces be better controlled and discipline enforced: all relevant military and civilian regulations, constitutional guarantees and international law, including humanitarian law and in particular the relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions and the protocols thereto, and the European Convention on Human Rights as well as the European Convention on the Prevention of Torture, should be fully respected during all operations, including full co-operation with the prokuratura before, during and after such operations;
iii. in so far as the security situation allows, troops should be confined to their barracks or withdrawn from the Chechen Republic altogether;
iv. all those suspected of committing abuses be fully investigated and, if found guilty, severely punished in accordance with the law, regardless of their rank and position;
v. the recommendations of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights should be implemented immediately by the Russian Federation;
vi. the Russian Federation authorise the publication of the reports of the CPT without further delay.
10. To ensure that those responsible for abuses be brought to justice, the Assembly:
i. demands better co-operation from the Russian authorities with national and international mechanisms of redress, both judicial and non-judicial;
ii. calls on member states of the Council of Europe to pursue all avenues of accountability with regard to the Russian Federation without further delay, including interstate complaints before the European Court of Human Rights and the exercise of universal jurisdiction for the most serious crimes committed in the Chechen Republic;
iii. considers that, if the efforts to bring to justice those responsible for human rights abuses are not intensified, and the climate of impunity in the Chechen Republic prevails, the international community should consider setting up an ad hoc tribunal to try war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Chechen Republic;
iv. urges Russia to ratify the Statute of the International Criminal Court without delay.
[1] Assembly debate on 2 April 2003 (13th Sitting) (see Doc. 9732, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Bindig). Text adopted by the Assembly on 2 April 2003 (13th Sitting)
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Recommendation 1600 (2003) [1]
1. The Assembly refers to its Resolution 1323 (2003) on the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic. It reiterates its belief that there will be no peace without justice in Chechnya.
2. The Assembly believes that urgent action is necessary to counteract the climate of impunity which has developed in the Chechen Republic over the last decade. Those guilty of past human rights abuses committed by both sides to the conflict must be brought to justice without further delay, and further human rights violations must be actively prevented.
3. Considering that the efforts undertaken so far by all actors involved, starting with the Russian government, administration and judicial system, but also by the Council of Europe and its member states, have failed dismally to improve the human rights situation and to ensure that past human rights violations and particularly war crimes are adequately prosecuted, the Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers:
i. reorient its assistance programmes in the North Caucasus towards an amelioration of the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic as the priority objective, and allocate sufficient funds to these programmes to make a real difference;
ii. ensure that non-governmental organisations active in preventing and documenting human rights violations in the Chechen Republic, as well as those assisting their victims in different ways, are involved in the said assistance programmes;
iii. take all possible measures to increase the effectiveness of the current mandate of the Council of Europe experts working in the Office of the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Chechen Republic as regards their possibility of influencing the human rights situation;
iv. urge the Russian government to fully comply with the recommendations addressed to it in paragraphs 9 and 10 of Resolution 1323 (2003) on the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic;
v. if the efforts to bring to justice those responsible for human rights abuses are not intensified, and the climate of impunity in the Chechen Republic prevails, consider proposing to the international community the setting up of an ad hoc tribunal to try war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Chechen Republic.
4. Furthermore, the Assembly decides to petition the Committee of Ministers by virtue of paragraph 1 of its 1994 Declaration on compliance accepted by member States of the Council of Europe and recommends that the Committee of Ministers instruct the Secretary General to make contacts, collect information and furnish advice on the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic in accordance with paragraph 4 of its 1994 Declaration on compliance with commitments.
[1] Assembly debate on 2 April 2003 (13th Sitting) (see Doc. 9732, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Bindig). Text adopted by the Assembly on 2 April 2003 (13th Sitting)
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Order No 586 (2003) [1]
1. The Assembly refers to its Resolution 1323 (2003) and Recommendation 1600 (2003) on the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic.
2. The Assembly instructs its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to report back to it at one of its 2004 part-sessions on the implementation of these texts and also on the recommendations of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
[1] Assembly debate on 2 April 2003 (13th Sitting) (see Doc. 9732, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Bindig). Text adopted by the Assembly on 2 April 2003 (13th Sitting)
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Source: Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
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