Johnson's Russia List
#9097
21 March 2005
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#19
Chicago Tribune
March 20, 2005
Chechen victims can get money, but a tribunal would be even better
By Emma Gilligan, postdoctoral fellow in the University of Chicago's
history department.

On a cold January morning, a man named Magomed Khashiyev returned to
Chechnya from the neighboring republic of Ingushetia. In the courtyard of
his home in Staropromyslovski, he discovered his sister, two nephews and a
neighbor lying facedown in the winter snow, their bodies frozen hard.
Bearing white armbands, they had all been shot at close range.

Staropromyslovski is a small suburb on the fringes of northwest Grozny. It
was one of the first districts to come under Russian ground attack at the
beginning of the second Chechen campaign. During the winter of 1999-2000,
at least 111 civilians were summarily executed in the region as Russian
armed forces implemented a series of infamous zachistka, or sweep
operations, through the northern suburbs of the capital.

Five years later, Khashiyev stood in the European Court of Human Rights in
Strasbourg, France, seeking moral justice for his dead relatives. The
judges voted unanimously in favor of Khashiyev and five other complainants
on Feb. 24.

The court ruled that the Russian Federation had violated the right to life
and the right to effective remedy of the European Convention on Human
Rights that it ratified in 1998.

This was a landmark moment in Russia's human-rights history with Western
Europe over the conflict in Chechnya. When Russia joined the Council of
Europe in 1996, a legal gateway was opened for Chechen civilians to appeal
to the European Court of Human Rights.

The court has now become the most important impartial arbiter in this conflict.

The first Chechen cases to reach the European Court of Human Rights were
initiated by a young Russian law graduate, Anna Kornilina. Following the
winter offensive, Kornilina was sent to interview refugees sheltering in
train wagons and tent camps on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia
for Memorial, a Moscow-based non-governmental organization.

It was there that she met Khashiyev. Frustrated by the impunity of the
local structures and lack of accountability, Kornilina studiously
researched the case law in search of legal precedents. She gathered the
Chechen testimonies and prepared the applications to the court. The first
was filed in July 2000.

As word of Kornilina's work spread, Chechens went to Moscow or visited
legal representatives in the region to lodge complaints. A determined
Diedrich Lohmann, former director of Human Rights Watch in Moscow,
recognized that they could establish an independent organization to provide
legal assistance to Chechen civilians willing to apply to the European
Court of Human Rights.

With seed funding from the Dutch government, the Stichting Chechnya Justice
Initiative was founded in Moscow, Nazran, Russia, and the Netherlands.

In London, lawyer Bill Bowring set up the European Human Rights Advocacy
Center with funding from the European Union. Between the advocacy center,
Memorial and the Chechnya Justice Initiative, some 150 cases from Chechen
civilians now await processing in the European Court.

The compensation awarded to Khashiyev by the European Court of Human Rights
was 15,000 euros. The court has no criminal jurisdiction in Russia, and no
individual perpetrator was tried in the Khashiyev case. Whoever was
responsible for the deaths roams free.

The Russian side has never disputed the aerial bombings and sweep
operations that took place that winter. It argues that what took place in
Chechnya was a result of "military necessity" in the struggle against
international terrorism.

The Russians confessed that the sweep operations and extrajudicial killings
may be connected "to the illegal activities of the federal troops," but in
the case of Khashiyev, they never confessed to the killings and submitted
only two-thirds of the investigation file to the court.

For the European Court, Russia's argument was always insubstantial.

The court concluded that Khashiyev's "relatives had been killed by military
personnel." In all six cases, the force was always disproportionate to the
threat and the "state failed to protect the right to life."

The judgments are now binding for Russia under international law. Russia is
obliged to pay the compensation to Khashiyev and will be pressured to
implement domestic measures to prevent future violations.

The Russian Federation has received little punishment for human-rights
violations in Chechnya. After the winter offensive, its Council of Europe
voting rights were suspended. Its representatives stormed out of the
Parliamentary Assembly threatening a "new Iron Curtain across Europe."

The council called on its members to consider a total suspension of Russia
if the situation in Chechnya did not improve. After a nine-month
suspension, Russia's voting rights were returned. It was a desperate
gesture by the council.

Russia's relationship with the Council of Europe is strained, and the
recent judgment in favor of Chechen civilians will strain it further. The
council voted in 2003 that if the climate of impunity keeps up in Chechnya,
the international community should consider an ad hoc war crimes tribunal.

Yevgeny Voronin, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, declared that the
"call to establish a tribunal for Chechnya similar to the tribunal in The
Hague is absurd. ... Russia has its own judiciary system, and no one can
take away its sovereign right to administer justice on its territory."

The ad hoc war crimes tribunals created for Rwanda and the former
Yugoslavia were passed by UN Security Council resolution. Because Russia is
a permanent Security Council member, the chances for a Chechnya tribunal
look to be nil.

If we measure the criteria that prompted the tribunals--violation of the
1949 Geneva Conventions--then we should expect a similar reaction, a war
crimes tribunal for Russia.

It would deal with individuals guilty of specific crimes from both parties,
not with the Russians collectively as a nation.

If a tribunal is not established, then the most powerful weapon the Council
of Europe can and should deploy is persuading a member state to lodge an
interstate complaint against the Russian Federation within the European
Court of Human Rights on the Russian government's failure to fulfill its
obligations under the convention.

It would demand the political will of one member state.

The European Court of Human Rights on its own is not sufficient to address
the human-rights violations in Chechnya. Because President Vladimir Putin
cannot or will not settle the Chechen crisis, it becomes the international
community's responsibility to intervene.

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