Russia, the Council of Europe, and the Rule of Law: Building and Dismantling “Our Common European Home”

Russia, the Council of Europe, and the Rule of Law: Building and Dismantling “Our Common European Home”

Editors

Gregory Shaffer & Wayne Sandholtz

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Description

This chapter examines how the Council of Europe sought to promote the rule of law in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev’s ambition to construct a “common European home,” to be pursued in concert with European states and international organizations, was advanced by Russian president Boris Yeltsin and, at least initially, by his successor as president, Vladimir Putin. But after roughly a decade of concrete reforms, that effort foundered, reversed, and then collapsed. Russia descended again into authoritarianism and, shortly after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe. Thus, this story now has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This chapter explores that story and how the dynamics of Russia’s pursuit and rocky course of membership in the Council of Europe affected both the Russian state and the international organization that sought to admit it to membership.

ISBN

9781009460286

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009460286

Publication Date

1-2-2025

Book Title

The Rule of Law Under Pressure

A Transnational Challenge

First Page

284

Last Page

315

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Keywords

Rule of Law, Russia, Council of Europe, European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), European Convention on Human Rights, Compliance and Enforcement, Democratic Backsliding, Authoritarianism, International Institutions, Human Rights Protection, Judicial Independence, Withdrawal from International Regimes, Sanctions and Expulsion, Legal Pluralism, European Legal Order

Disciplines

Comparative and Foreign Law | European Law | Human Rights Law | International Law | Law | Public Law and Legal Theory | Rule of Law

Russia, the Council of Europe, and the Rule of Law: Building and Dismantling “Our Common European Home”

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