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Germany - Affronting victims of heinous crimes, Human Rights Watch warned today, is Russia's passage on April 28, 2023, of a law making assistance to foreign and international organizations illegal.
The law forbids cooperation with foreign courts as well as international organizations "to which Russia is not a party," such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) or any ad hoc international tribunals that may be established to try Russian officials and military personnel. A five-year prison sentence is possible for such cooperation.
Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, stated that the new rule "appears to be aimed at further undermining international efforts to secure accountability for crimes committed by Russian nationals, including in Ukraine." Russia has a new legal system.
Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian president's commissioner for children's rights, were both given arrest warrants by ICC judges on March 17. The judges discovered sufficient evidence to infer that Putin and Lvova-Belova are criminally liable for the alleged smuggling of Ukrainian children into Russia from seized regions of Ukraine.
A representative for the Kremlin condemned the ICC warrants and said that Russia did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the court. Separately, the ICC prosecutor and the panel of judges assigned to the case had criminal proceedings filed against them by Russian investigators. In response to the ICC's arrest warrants, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, announced the new law on March 25.
The new law makes reference to foreign state bodies in addition to the ICC, including Ukrainian courts and the District Court of The Hague in the Netherlands, which issued a long-awaited decision on November 17, 2022, regarding Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July 2014. In absentia, the Dutch court found two Russians and a Ukrainian guilty of murder for their part in bringing the plane down. In connection with the Russia-Ukraine war, Ukrainian authorities have also been pursuing their own criminal investigations into severe crimes perpetrated in Ukraine by Russian soldiers.
Other laws in Russia make "confidential cooperation" with foreign governments or international organizations illegal if it is thought to be against the country's widely construed "state security," which is penalized with up to 8 years in prison.
Another bill, passed by the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, in its first reading in December, would grant effective immunity for some crimes committed while acting "in the interests of the Russian Federation" in the Donetska, Luhanska, Zaporizka, and Khersonska regions of Ukraine, which are occupied by Russia.
According to Human Rights Watch, the new law, which was adopted in April, is wide, ambiguously written, and appears to be intended for selective implementation. Russian human rights advocates have also expressed concern that the law could be used, among other things, to criminally prosecute those who call for or provide assistance to ensure the enforcement of judgments by international judicial bodies of which Russia is not a member, such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
In four cases, petitioners who had been given reasonable satisfaction by the ECtHR for violations of their rights under the European Convention made the decision to withdraw their claims in light of the new rule, according to Human Rights Watch.
Prior to being ejected from the Council of Europe the following day by the Committee of Ministers, Russia took proactive steps to withdraw from the organization on March 15, 2022. Then, Russia declared that it would not abide by any rulings rendered by the European Court of Human Rights after March 15, 2022.
Later, the enforcement of such judgements was prohibited by Russian legislative authorities. However, as stated by the court and in accordance with article 58 of the European treaty on Human Rights, Russia is still responsible for any violations that occurred prior to September 16, 2022, the day that it ceased to be a party to the treaty.
The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, which is in charge of monitoring the execution of judgments from the European Court, condemned Russia's refusal to implement its rulings in March 2023 and emphasized the court's unqualified obligation to grant all applicants just satisfaction.
The passage of this troubling bill, according to Jarrah, "is yet another effort by Russian authorities to systematically stifle any effort to seek justice and deter scrutiny of Russia's conduct abroad." "The international community should publicly state that they will continue to support judicial organizations like the ICC and will not put up with Russia's attempts to obstruct their important work."
