PACE Committee on Legal
Affairs and Human Rights provisional draft recommendation on war crimes tribunal
The human rights situation in the Chechen Republic
3 March 2003
ajdoc11.2003 PARTS I+II
Provisional version of the draft report:
Part I: Draft resolution
Part II: Draft recommendation
Part III: Draft order
Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Rapporteur: Mr Rudolf Bindig, Germany, Socialist Group
I.
Draft resolution
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 it. Due to the restrictive policy of access
to the Chechen Republic instituted by the Russian government, both for NGOs
and for the press, most violations would never even come to light were it not
for the courage and tireless efforts of some brave victims, journalists and
human rights activists. Criminal investigations of gross violations by
Russian forces and Chechen fighters – even of 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 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 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
guilty of 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 and humanitarian law, particularly
the Geneva Conventions and the protocols thereto, 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. those members of Russian forces
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.
10. To ensure that those guilty of 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 guilty of 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, modelled on the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, to be empowered to try all such
crimes committed in the Chechen Republic;
iv. urges Russia to ratify the Statute
of the International Criminal Court without delay.
II. Draft recommendation
1. The Assembly refers to its Resolution
… (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 said assistance programmes;
iii. urge the Russian government to
fully comply with the recommendations addressed to it in paragraphs 9 and 10
of Resolution … (2003) on the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic;
iv. if the efforts to bring to justice
those guilty of 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, modelled on the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, to be empowered to
try all such crimes committed in the Chechen Republic.
III. Draft order
1. The Assembly refers to its Resolution
… (2003) and Recommendation … (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 its September part-
session on the implementation of these texts, and also of the recommendations
of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
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The original is too long for posting. Here's the link: http://www.watchdog.cz/?show=000000-000004-000003-000081&lang=1
And here the corresponding Word document: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chechnya-sl/files/PACE_Bindig.doc.
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Interfax: Russia's PACE envoy slams proposal for int'l court on crimes in Chechnya
March 4, 2003
A draft proposing the establishment of a judicial body analogous to the
International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to investigate human
rights violations in Chechnya is beyond criticism, Russian State Duma
international affairs committee chairman and head of the Russian delegation
to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Dmitri Rogozin
has said.
The proposal was made by Rudolf Bindig, a member of the PACE Legal Affairs
and Human Rights Committee. "The paper drawn up by Bindig is frenzied
work done by a frenzied foe of Russia," Rogozin said on Tuesday. "The draft
cannot even be commented on - it must be rejected at once," he said.
Rogozin noted that, unfortunately, nothing good can be expected from Bindig.
Materials concerning the human rights situation in Chechnya on which he tries
to voice an opinion are often based on unverified information and "are beyond
decency". Rogozin said members of the Russian delegation to PACE have repeatedly
had "to raise their voices when talking with Bindig, but we must admit this
has not affected his biased approach".
Interfax: Moscow rejects idea of international tribunal for Chechnya
March 05, 2003
Yevgeny Voronin, spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, called holding
an international tribunal for investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity,
similar to the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in Chechnya
"absurd". This idea was proposed by the Legal Commission of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
"The call to establish a tribunal for Chechnya similar to the tribunal in the
Hague, is absurd, which must be clear to its authors, who are deputies of European
parliaments. Russia has its own judiciary system and no one can take away its
sovereign right to administer justice on its territory," Voronin told the press
on
Wednesday.
MFA/ChRI: Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic "warmly welcomes an ad hoc international
tribunal for war crimes in Chechnya"
MFA/ChRI: Press Release
#03/03 (on PACE initiative for war crimes tribunal)
THE CHECHEN REPUBLIC OF ICHKERIA MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
March 5, 2003
Press Release
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria warmly welcomes
a decision of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee
on Legal Affairs and Human Rights on last Monday to call for setting up an ad
hoc international tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Chechnya
if ‘climate of impunity continues’.
We fully support the Committee’s view that there can be ‘no peace
without justice’, and firmly believe that it has taken a major step that
will help to end the reign of terror and impunity in Chechnya. We respectfully
urge all members of the Parliamentary Assembly to support this initiative of
the Committee on its upcoming session in Strasbourg, and offer our full and
active cooperation with such a tribunal.
---------------------------
Press-contact: ministry@chechnya-mfa.info
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Webauthor's comment: It should be reminded that Maskhadov's government already proposed an international court on war crimes in Chechnya that should investigate the atrocities committed by BOTH sides. Nevertheless Russia always refused. That alone might give the true dimension of facts and from which side the overwhelming majority of acts of terrorism really come from. Here is one official appeal dated to one year before:
27 March 2002
Statement of the Chechen
Foreign Minister [about Ivanov's ideas on the International Tribunal for
Chechnya]
CHECHEN REPUBLIC OF ICHKERIA MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Ilyas Akhmadov, the Foreign Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, issued
today the following statement:
On 26 March, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov labelled the idea of International
Tribunal for Chechnya a "provocation by those who would like to complicate the
process of a political settlement in Chechnya". Nothing could be further from
the truth.
"The process of a political settlement in Chechnya" has never started, thanks
to the stubborn refusal of the current Russian political and military leadership
to end the genocide against the Chechen people. Thirty months of deliberate
and systematic Russian campaign of total terror, expressed in mass looting,
illegal detention, torture, rape and extra-judicial executions, leaves no room
for illusions. The current Russian leadership has bluntly ignored concerns of
the community of civilised nations and has chosen the road of terror and genocide
We, therefore, call upon the Member States of the U.N. General Assembly to found
an International Criminal Tribunal for Chechnya (ICTC) in order to prosecute
Russian war criminals and genocidaires, both military and civilian, including
and especially Russian political leaders.
The U.N. General Assembly can set up this ICTC by a majority vote pursuant to
its powers to establish "subsidiary organs" under U.N. Charter article 22. This
International Criminal Tribunal for Chechnya should be organised by the U.N.
General Assembly along the same lines as the International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that has already been established by the U.N.
Security Council
Signed:
Ilyas Akhmadov
Foreign Minister
For additional information, please, contact Professor Francis A. Boyle, the
Attorney of Record of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria:
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@l... <mailto:fboyle@l...>