Seite - 12 - in Austrian Law Journal, Band 1/2020

ALJ 2020 Lessons Learned 11 attention and he was awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize by the Parliamentary Assembly in November 2018. In 2019 he received a relatively mild sentence allowing for his release soon after, but could not continue his work in Chechnya any more. The shrinking space for civil society in Europe has also been addressed by a pertinent recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of 2018, which requested Member States to provide an enabling legal framework and a conducive political environment as well as effective measures to protect and promote civil society space.35 Civil society partly derives its strength from its access to the media, which disseminate its findings and requests and thus allow it to mobilize public opinion. The media themselves, in particular by way of investigative journalism play an indispensable role for denouncing human rights violations, by “naming and shaming”. Both can influence public opinion, which is crucial in pursuing a case against a government as can be seen from the “Greek case”.36 Academia has the role of researching and analyzing, interpreting obligations and commenting on the appropriateness and consistency of international action. It might also provide assistance to victims in accessing national and international remedies as can be shown for the case of Russia.37 It has recently been facing an anti-elitist sentiment by populist governments, but its contribution is needed for the development of policies based on facts as shown by the COVID-19 crises. D. Case studies of Russian Federation and Turkey 1. Russian Federation After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, succeeded by the Russian Federation (RF), the latter applied for membership in the Council of Europe. The application was granted in 1996 in spite of the results of fact-finding by PACE which showed that the Russian Federation was not as yet in a position to meet the membership criteria.38 Nonetheless, in order not to lose the window of opportunity of the Russian interest in accession, the Russian Federation was admitted in 1996 with the understanding that the commitments entered into upon accession and the monitoring procedure would help Russia to undertake the necessary reforms. The accession meant that Russia also became a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and had to accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which by the reform of 1998 became a single institution to decide all cases. Since, the RF has been found in violation of its obligations in thousands of cases, which in the early period of its membership led to important legal reforms in which the newly established Constitutional Court of the RF had a key role. The Convention and the Court and their “Strasbourg effect” were welcome to support the modernization and 35 Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers Recommendation CM/Rec(2018)11 of Nov. 28, 2018 on the need to strengthen the protection and promotion of civil society space in Europe. 36 Anne-Marie Clark, Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing Human Rights Norms 42 et seq. (Princeton University Press 2001). 37 See, Anton Burkov, The use of European human rights law in Russian courts, in RUSSIA AND THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, THE STRASBOURG EFFECT 59 et seq. (Lauri Mälksoo, Wolfgang Benedek eds. Cambridge University Press. 2018); Philip Leach, Egregious human rights violations in Chechnya: appraising the pursuit of justice, id., 255 et seq. 38 Petra Roter, Russia in the Council of Europe: Participation à la carte, in RUSSIA AND THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS, THE STRASBOURG EFFECT 40 et seq. (Lauri Mälksoo, Wolfgang Benedek eds. Cambridge University Press. 2018); see the opinion by PACE on Russia’s application for membership in the Council of Europe, Doc. 7463 of Jan. 18, 1996.