Ukraine has filed a problematic complaint through the European Court of Human Rights against Russia, alleging violations of the human rights of both individual citizens, and violations against the Crimean Tatar minority on the whole. But how they’ve gone about it, may require the commission to determine – whether overtly or de facto – whether Russia’s control over Crimea is illegal. This raises serious questions about the admissibility of the claims themselves, and create a procedural headache for the ECHR. Meanwhile, the backdrop is that the ECHR understands the importance of Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe and its voluntary compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The problem for Ukraine is that the ECHR understands this is a political process. At the same time, Russia has fought to maintain membership as much as the Council of Europe has pushed for Russia to be a member in recent times, but Russia is likely to exit if the ECHR makes the kind of irresponsible ruling that Ukraine seeks.
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