International response to the Second Chechen War

Western countries

There had been strong international condemnation of Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

's threat to civilian

Civilian

A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...

s to get out of the Chechen capital, Grozny

Grozny

Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...

, or be considered an enemy target and destroyed. The United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

have denounced the move. There had been speculation about possible economic sanctions

Economic sanctions

Economic sanctions are domestic penalties applied by one country on another for a variety of reasons. Economic sanctions include, but are not limited to, tariffs, trade barriers, import duties, and import or export quotas...

.

US President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

said Russia would "pay a heavy price" for its current tactics, facing international isolation

International isolation

International isolation is a penalty applied by the international community or a sizeable or powerful group of countries, like the United Nations, towards one nation, government or people group...

. The EU also urged Russia to end what they called disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya. The United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a senior member of Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as one of the Great Offices of State...

Robin Cook

Robert Finlayson Cook was a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Livingston from 1983 until his death, and notably served in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001....

has "wholeheartedly condemned" the Russian ultimatum

Ultimatum

An ultimatum is a demand whose fulfillment is requested in a specified period of time and which is backed up by a threat to be followed through in case of noncompliance. An ultimatum is generally the final demand in a series of requests...

to the people of Grozny to flee or die. "We condemn vigorously what Milosevic did in Kosovo

Kosovo

Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

and we condemn vigorously what Russia is doing in Chechnya," he said.

On November 18, 1999, George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

strongly criticised Russia over its military campaign

Military campaign

In the military sciences, the term military campaign applies to large scale, long duration, significant military strategy plan incorporating a series of inter-related military operations or battles forming a distinct part of a larger conflict often called a war...

in Chechnya, saying foreign aid to Russia should be suspended if Russian policy did not change. "I think Russia has stepped over the bounds," Bush said.

United States Secretary of State

United States Secretary of State

The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...

Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Korbelová Albright is the first woman to become a United States Secretary of State. She was appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0...

noted in her March 24, 2000, speech to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights

United Nations Commission on Human Rights

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006...

We cannot ignore the fact that thousands of Chechen civilians have died and more than 200,000 have been driven from their homes. Together with other delegations, we have expressed our alarm at the persistent, credible reports of human rights violations by Russian forces in Chechnya, including extrajudicial killings

Summary execution

A summary execution is a variety of execution in which a person is killed on the spot without trial or after a show trial. Summary executions have been practiced by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, and...

. There are also reports that Chechen separatists have committed abuses, including the killing of civilians and prisoners. ... The war in Chechnya has greatly damaged Russia's international standing and is isolating Russia from the international community

International community

The international community is a term used in international relations to refer to all peoples, cultures and governments of the world or to a group of them. The term is used to imply the existence of common duties and obligations between them...

. Russia's work to repair that damage, both at home and abroad, or its choice to risk further isolating itself, is the most immediate and momentous challenge that Russia faces.

Other countries

On December 9, 1999, at a meeting with Li Peng

Li Peng

Li Peng served as the fourth Premier of the People's Republic of China, between 1987 and 1998, and the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, from 1998 to 2003. For much of the 1990s Li was ranked second in the Communist Party of China ...

, People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

's legislative chairman and the communist government's most hard-line leader, Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...

told reporters he wanted to send a message to Clinton, who had criticized Russia for causing civilian casualties in Chechnya. "It seems Mr. Clinton has forgotten Russia is a great power that possesses a nuclear arsenal. We aren't afraid at all of Clinton's anti-Russian position. I want to tell President Clinton that he alone cannot dictate how the world should live, work and play. It is us who will dictate," Yeltsin said. Yeltsin and President of the People's Republic of China

President of the People's Republic of China

The President of the People's Republic of China is a ceremonial office and a part of State organs under the National People's Congress and it is the head of state of the People's Republic of China . The office was created by the 1982 Constitution...

Jiang Zemin

Jiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...

discussed both criticized U.S. global dominance. "Jiang Zemin completely understands and fully supports Russia's actions in combatting terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

and extremism

Extremism

Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...

in Chechnya," Russian Foreign Minister

Foreign minister

A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government . It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in...

Igor Ivanov

Igor Sergeyevich Ivanov is a Russian politician and was Russian Foreign Minister from 1998 to 2004.- Early life :...

said afterwards. Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China "understands and supports the efforts made by Russia in safeguarding national unity and territorial integrity

Territorial integrity

Territorial integrity is the principle under international law that nation-states should not attempt to promote secessionist movements or to promote border changes in other nation-states...

."'

On 26 September 2002, after Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...

's meeting with the Chechen pro-Moscow President Akhmad Kadyrov

Akhmad Kadyrov

Hajji Akhmad Abdulkhamidovich Kadyrov , also spelled Akhmat, was the Chief Mufti of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in the 1990s during and after the First Chechen War...

, Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri

Naji Sabri

Naji Sabri Ahmad Al-Hadithi served as the Iraqi Foreign Minister under Saddam Hussein in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.-Background:...

stated the country's position with regard to Chechnya, namely that Chechnya is an integral part of Russia. "Iraq is firmly against any manifestations of separatism in Russia."

Council of Europe

The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...

Resolutions on 'The human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

situation in the Chechen Republic':

In June 2005, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an...

examined Russia's progress in honouring the obligations and commitments it undertook on joining the Council of Europe in 1996. PACE passed a resolution which stated that there had been very little progress in relation to the obligation to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations. The resolution called on the Russian authorities to "take effective action to put an immediate end to the ongoing 'disappearances'

Forced disappearance

In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...

, torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

, arbitrary detention

Detention (imprisonment)

Detention is the process when a state, government or citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom of liberty at that time. This can be due to criminal charges being raised against the individual as part of a prosecution or to protect a person or property...

in illegal and secret facilities, and unlawful killings" reported in Chechnya.

The June 9, 2006 PACE report by Dick Marty

Dick Marty

Dick Marty is a Swiss politician and former state prosecutor of the canton of Ticino. He is a member of the Swiss Council of States , and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.-Education:Marty holds a doctorate in law from the University of Neuchâtel with the thesis:...

said "It is hardly possible to speak of secret detention centres in Council of Europe member states without mentioning Chechnya. Mr Bindig's very recent report also notes not only numerous cases of forced disappearance and torture, but also the existence of secret places of detention." It quoted "Damning recent accounts by witnesses."

On March 13, 2007 the new Council of Europe report said "resort to torture and other forms of ill-treatment by members of law enforcement agencies and security forces continues, as does the related practice of unlawful detentions." The Council said it felt forced to make public its findings in light of the Russian authorities' "failure to improve the situation" despite detailed recommendations following the torture committee's visits to Chechnya last year.

European Court of Human Rights

In October 2004, the European Court of Human Rights

European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

(ECHR) agreed to try cases brought by Chechen civilians against the Russian government.

As of November 2007, 35 cases were decided.

The first trial

Trial

A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard.It may refer to:*Trial , the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court...

concluded in February 2005. The Court ruled that the Russian government violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights

European Convention on Human Rights

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953...

, including a clause

Clause

In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...

on the protection of property

Property

Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...

, a guarantee of the right to life, and a ban on torture

Torture

and inhumane or degrading treatment, and ordered the Russian government to pay compensation

Damages

In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...

to the six plaintiff

Plaintiff

A plaintiff , also known as a claimant or complainant, is the term used in some jurisdictions for the party who initiates a lawsuit before a court...

s of the case. The cases concerned the Russian federal forces' indiscriminate aerial bombing

Strategic bombing

Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating an enemy nation-state by destroying its economic ability and public will to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces...

of a civilian convoy of refugees fleeing Grozny

Grozny

in October 1999; the "disappearance" and subsequent extrajudicial execution of five individuals in Grozny

Grozny

in January 2000; and the indiscriminate aerial and artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

bombardment

Bombardment

A bombardment is an attack by artillery fire directed against fortifications, troops or towns and buildings.Prior to World War I the term term was only applied to the bombardment of defenceless or undefended objects, houses, public buildings, it was only loosely employed to describe artillery...

of the village of Katyr-Yurt in February 2000. The compensations were not paid, NGOs claim that applicants to the court are met with repressions, including murders and disappearance. In the most dramatic period of 2000-2002 five plaintiffs died.

In summer 2006 the European Court on Human Rights decided the first cases concerning forced disappearance

Forced disappearance

s in Chechnya; it was excepted the decisions by the European Court might play an important role in changing Chechnya's terrible human rights situation, as more than 100 disappearance cases related to Chechnya are pending in the court. The cases included one where the court ordered Russia to pay 35,000 euros to the mother of Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev

Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev

Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev was a 25-year-old Ingush insurgent fighter, who was forcibly disappeared in February 2000 after being filmed in the company of Russian Army general ordering him taken away and shot...

for violating her son's "right to life" as well as failing "to conduct an effective investigation" into his February 2000 disappearance. Key evidence in the case, according to court documents, was video footage filmed by a reporter for NTV

NTV Russia

NTV is a Russian television channel. As a subsidiary of Vladimir Gusinsky's company Media-Most, it was a pioneer in the post-Soviet independent television media, but was later taken over by state-owned Gazprom.- History :...

and CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

television showing Colonel-General Alexander Baranov, ordering soldiers to "finish off" and "shoot" Yandiyev; Baranov has since been promoted and awarded a Hero of Russia medal and made responsible for all Defense Ministry forces in the North Caucasus.

On October 12, 2006, the Court held Russian state responsible for the summary execution of the Estamirov family during the February 5, 2000 Novye Aldi massacre

Novye Aldi massacre

The Novye Aldi massacre was a notorious crime in which Russian federal forces summarily executed dozens of people in the Novye Aldi suburb of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, in the course of a "mopping-up" operation conducted there on February 5, 2000, soon after the end of the battle for the city...

by the OMON

OMON

OMOH is a generic name for the system of special units of militsiya within the Russian and earlier the Soviet MVD...

forces. "Russian and Chechen security forces should take this decision as a warning that the abuse and murder of innocent civilians cannot be met by impunity," said Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...

. At least 11 other incidents of summary executions committed on the same day in the same region of Chechnya are pending before the Court.

On November 9, 2006, the Court ruled the Russian government complicit in the murder and abduction of three Chechen civilians, including a case on the disappearance and presumed death of two Chechens from the same family. The court sided with Marzet Imakayeva, a Chechen woman who fled Russia two years ago to seek asylum

Right of asylum

Right of asylum is an ancient juridical notion, under which a person persecuted for political opinions or religious beliefs in his or her own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries...

in the United States; it also said the way Imakayeva's complaints were dealt with by Russian authorities constituted "inhuman treatment." The bodies of Imakayeva family members have never been found; in the other ruled case the abductee, Nura Luluyeva

Nura Luluyeva

Nura Luluyeva was a Chechen woman who was kidnapped and murdered by a Russian death squad in 2000.In the morning of June 3, 2000, Nura Luluyeva, an unemployed nurse and kindergarten teacher and the mother of four children , was selling strawberries on Mozdokskaya Street of Grozny, the capital of...

, turned up in a mass grave

Mass grave

A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...

eight months later.

On January 8, 2007, the Court has condemned Russia in the first torture case from Chechnya to be heard by the ECHR. In its judgment, the Court held that the applicants Adam and Arbi Chitayev had been held in unacknowledged detention, that they had been subjected to torture, and that the Russian authorities have not properly investigated their allegations.

UNHCR

A resolution adopted in April 2000 by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR)

United Nations Commission on Human Rights

called for Russia, among other things, to establish a "national broad-based and independent commission of inquiry" into abuse, with a view to bringing perpetrators to justice and preventing impunity

Impunity

Impunity means "exemption from punishment or loss or escape from fines". In the international law of human rights, it refers to the failure to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice and, as such, itself constitutes a denial of the victims' right to justice and redress...

. It was the first time in the UNHCR history it had criticized a permanent United Nations Security Council

United Nations Security Council

The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...

member. However, Russia has not fulfilled the resolution's requirements.

On April 20, 2001, the UNHCR adopted another resolution condemning human rights violations in Chechnya perpetrated by federal forces, citing "forced disappearances, extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, torture, and other inhuman and degrading treatment." The resolution called on Russia to "ensure that both civilian and military prosecutor's offices undertake systematic, credible and exhaustive criminal investigations and prosecutions" of all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. It reiterated its requirement, also made in 2000 resolution, for Russia to establish a national commission of inquiry to investigate crimes in Chechnya; despite Russia's failure to create such a commission or ensure effective prosecutions after the 2000 resolution, the commission declined to call for the creation of an international commission of inquiry.

In April 2004 the Commission rejected another resolution on Chechnya. 23 of 53 countries voted against the resolution, while 12 countries voted for the resolution — mainly European Union countries. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

Sergey Lavrov

Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov is the Foreign Minister of Russia. Prior to that, Lavrov was a Soviet diplomat and Russia's ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004. Lavrov speaks Russian, English, French and Sinhala....

said "all attempts to depict the situation in Chechnya as a human rights problem have been unrealistic."

On February 22, 2006, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour

Louise Arbour

Louise Arbour, is the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal for Ontario and a former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda...

, said she was deeply shocked by accounts of torture and kidnapping

Kidnapping

In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

s in Chechnya. She recommended the creation of an independent body to investigate crimes committed during the war.

On March 30, 2006, Manfred Nowak

Manfred Nowak

Manfred Nowak is an Austrian human rights lawyer.Nowak was a student of Felix Ermacora, and cooperated with him until Ermacora's death in 1995. They co-founded the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte in 1992...

, the United Nations investigator on torture said that Moscow had agreed to let him visit Russia, including the troubled region—the first such trip by a UN torture envoy in more than a decade.

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