Europe’s leading human rights watchdog can’t kick Russia out over its invasion of Ukraine because it already quit.
After the Council of Europe suspended Russia last month, Russia withdrew itself from the organization on Tuesday.
Russian officials said NATO and the European Union were undermining the council and using it as “a means of ideological support for their military-political and economic expansion to the east.”
At the news of Russia’s decision to leave, Polish lawmaker Miroslawa Nykiel said in response, “We are glad; we do not want you here.”
Withdrawal from the council, which helped devise the European Convention on Human Rights, relieves Russia of adhering to the standards laid out in the convention. U.S. and international officials have called for investigations into Russia’s conduct in Ukraine, claiming that its indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, including hospitals, constitutes war crimes.
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Back at home, Russians will no longer be allowed to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against their government as a result of leaving the group.
Russia’s relationship with the council was on the rocks as it faced expulsion after the council suspended the country on Feb. 25, a day after it executed its “special military operation” in Ukraine. On Monday, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, the council’s secretary-general, called on the body to take more concrete action than allowing Russia to wait suspended in limbo.
“Since the decision to suspend Russia’s representation was taken on 25 February, its authorities have neither withdrawn from our Organization, nor stepped back from their brutal campaign in Ukraine,” Buric said. “The serious violation of Article 3 of our Statute remains. It is for our Committee of Ministers — our member states — to determine what, if anything, should now be done: whether to leave the suspension in place or ask Russia to withdraw.”
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Tuesday morning, also calling for Russia’s expulsion and highlighting the bloodshed in his country.
“The right to life is one of the key fundamental rights — and today, at the center of Europe, this right is being violated every minute and every second,” Shmyhal said. “There must be a tough response. Those who carried out this unprovoked and unjustified aggression cannot remain in this European family — where human life is regarded as the highest value.”
Russian officials said there is no reason for the world to worry about human rights abuses at its hand now that it is no longer constrained by the council.
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Reuters reported that Leonid Slutsky, the head of the International Affairs Committee of Russia’s lower house of parliament, wrote on his Telegram channel: “Don’t be afraid. All rights will be guaranteed in our country, necessarily and unconditionally.”
Tuesday’s exit marks just the second time a country has left the council since it was established in 1949. Greece left the council in April 1967 after a military coup. Four member countries filed an application to investigate human rights abuses in the country, but its leaders withdrew from the council before the investigation finished. Greece rejoined the body five years later.
