Economy 10 March 2022, 1:55pm

Russia to withdraw from the Council of Europe

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Russia’s Foreign Ministry has announced on Thursday they will no longer participate in the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights organisation founded in response to the humanitarian outrages of the second world war.

The Foreign Ministry said European Union and NATO member states, which are "unfriendly to Russia", are using their absolute majority in the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers "to continue the destruction of the Council of Europe and the common humanitarian and legal space in Europe."

The events are approaching a point of no return. Russia will not accept the subversive actions being taken by the collective West to replace international law, which the United States and its satellites are trampling underfoot, with a “rules-based order.”

The Council of Europe is not related to the EU.

Russia will not participate in the campaign being waged by NATO and its obedient EU followers to turn the oldest European organisation into another platform for preaching about Western superiority and for grandstanding. Let them enjoy each other’s company without Russia,

the ministry concluded.

A country’s membership of the Council of Europe is terminated at the end of the current fiscal year, if a notification to this effect has been sent to the organization during the first nine months of the year, Federation Council Deputy Speaker Konstantin Kosachev told Russian news agency TASS today.

"Exit from the Council of Europe is carried out on the basis of article 7 of the CE Charter at the initiative of the member-state, when it officially notifies the CE secretary-general. Membership is terminated at the end of the current fiscal year provided the notification was sent during the first nine months of the year," Kosachev said, adding that if such a notification is filed during the last three months of the current fiscal year, "the membership is terminated at the end of the next fiscal year."

Spelling out what not participating in the Council means, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters

[...] the withdrawal from the Council of Europe clearly means a withdrawal from all of its mechanisms.

Russians will not be able to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after all procedures on Russia leaving the Council of Europe are concluded, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrey Klishas told TASS on Thursday.

If Russia leaves the Council of Europe, and this is a certain procedure, then following its conclusion our citizens won’t be able to appeal to the ECHR,

he said.

"Our citizens should be more active in appealing for the protection of their rights within the framework of national jurisdiction, including the Constitutional Court," he said.

The lawmaker added that the ECHR has always been a subsidiary institution, that is, an "additional agency" to protect one’s rights. He emphasized that he supported the statement by Russia’s Constitutional Court on exiting the Conference of European Constitutional Courts "due to the extreme politicization of the association’s activity."

Klishas argued that the withdrawal from the Council of Europe would not adversely affect Russians because, in his view, the country's standards in many areas are higher than those set out in the organisation's documents.

Collecting evidence of possible war crimes

In the meantime, the United States is collecting evidence of possible war crimes, human rights abuses and violations of international law by Russia during its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, a National Security Council spokesperson told NBC News on Monday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on Sunday: “We’ve seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would constitute a war crime. We’ve seen very credible reports about the use of certain weapons.”

Britain says the Russian Ministry of Defense has confirmed the use in Ukraine of the TOS-1A weapon system, which uses thermobaric rockets."The Russian MoD has confirmed the use of the TOS-1A weapon system in Ukraine," it said on Twitter. "The TOS-1A uses thermobaric rockets, creating incendiary and blast effects."

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor opened an investigation into Russia’s conduct in Ukraine.

About the Council of Europe and Russia's history with it

Founded in 1949 and based in Strasbourg, the 47-member Council is open to any European state that accepts the rule of law and guarantees its citizens fundamental freedoms and human rights. In 1950, the Council adopted the European Convention on Human Rights, which established the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the highest judicial forum for human rights on the continent.

The Council of Europe suspended Russia's membership after Vladimir Putin launched what he called a "special military operation" against Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Russia’s rights of representation were suspended in 2001, following the second Chechen war, and in 2014 when the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) revoked the voting rights of Russia's parliamentary delegation and several other key powers in response to the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and Russian intervention in south-east Ukraine.

The members of the Russian legislative delegation were not only not allowed to vote in the assembly, but were also barred from participating in the work of the PACE governing bodies, becoming rapporteurs, being members of the PACE election observation delegations, and representing the assembly in the CoE bodies or outside the Council. In response to the sanctions imposed on it, the Russian legislature suspended its membership in 2016 and has not paid membership fees since 2017.

According to the rules of the organisation, Russia could have been expelled for two years of non-payment of dues. To prevent this, PACE changed its rules of procedure in 2019, over the objections of the Ukrainian delegation.

In summer 2019, PACE decided to reinstate the rights of the Russian delegation, and Moscow paid the organisation some EUR 54.7 million in arrears in 2017 and 2018 in dues and other obligations.

Russia had already threatened to withdraw from the CoE last spring over the ECHR's objections to the case of convicted Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. Moscow accused the institution of political bias.