The Aggression Against Ukraine and the Effectiveness of Inter-State Cases in Case of War | JTWorld 5

On February-March, 2022 Council of Europe decided to suspend the Russian Federation from its Rights of Representation in the Committee of Ministers and in the Parliamentary Assembly; then – Exclusion from organisation at all. It was some kind of a sanction for war invasion, despite that fact, that CoE’s mandate are not include international security issues.

Nevertheless, society demands exclusion of Russia from CoE system starting from 2014 (Crimea Annexation and Donbass invasion) or even 2008 (Georgian invasion). In the same time CoE’s was a platform for dialogue, even with authoritarian regimes, so exclusuion of Russia has its pro and cons. Especially for individual complaints and their executions.

Ukraine started an inter-state litigation, and obviously it is a lot of challenges, that will appear before the ECtHR. First of all the Resource Implications; second – Legitimacy and Effectiveness (the best example – judgment in Georgia v Russia (ii) was delivered in 2021 and dealt with the situation that happened in August 2008); third – the Court’s (Meta-) Function in Inter-state Cases. So the perspectives of Ukrainian case cannot be prognosed so far, especially if we are speaking about execution of a future inter-state decision after the years of litigation and war-ending.

Ukrainian war in prisma of CoE’s possibility to restrain russia’s presence in civilized mechanisms of human right defence became the topic of the 5th episode of JustTalk_World: "The Aggression Against Ukraine and the Effectiveness of Inter-State Cases in Case of War".

Guests of the episode:
Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, professor in Human Rights Law (The University of Liverpool)
Vassilis P. Tzevelekos, expert in general international law and in human rights protection (The University of Liverpool)

Language of the episode: English.

Mentioned materials:
Editorial in European Convention of Human Rights Law Review (28.03.2022): @urnals/eclr/3/2/article-p165_001.xml

00:00 – Intro
3:58 – The CoE’s Decision to Suspend the Russia from its Rights of Representation in the Committee of Ministers and in the Parliamentary Assembly and then Exlusion from organisation: is it a logical consequence of war invasion?
10:03 – What does Rusisa’s exclusion from CoE it means to Ukraine? For victims of human rights violations from Ukrainian side?
15:00 – Effectiveness of Ukrainian individual application’s
20:44 – Challenges, that will appear before the ECtHR on the inter-state litigation
29:47 – Perspectives of Russia’s cooperation with ECtHR and future execution of it’s decisions: example of “Cyprus vs. Turkey”
38:33 – What other mechanisms of CoE can be enforced after Russia’s exclusion from the organisation? What possibilities still have Ukrainian lawyers?
43:34 – CPT and other examples
46:54 – Q&A
54:18 – On the correlation of dictatorship and CoE’s membership: Belarus case and parallels with Russia’s future
57:52 – Parallels with Eric Posner “The Twilight of human rights” book
59:50 – Political environment of international law and human rights: sick places of UN system and others enforcement mechanisms
01:01:54 – Is it better to have Russia within the CoE or outside the organisation?
01:07:12 – The New Architecture of Human Rights defence in Europe: perspectives