January 27, 1997

Secretary General Daniel Tarschys

Council of Europe

Palais de l'Europe

F-67075 Strasbourg

France

By fax: (333) 88 41 27 99

Dear Secretary General Tarschys,

On behalf of Human Rights Watch, I extend my respects. I write with great concern on the occasion of the urgent debate, set for January 29, of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly on the honoring of commitments by the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

As you are aware, to varying degrees both countries stand in flagrant noncompliance with several elements of their human rights obligations as both member states to the Council of Europe and signatories to international human rights instruments. Perhaps most egregious in the context of their membership in the Council of Europe is their continued execution of prisoners, in violation of their obligation from the moment of their accession (February 28, 1996 for the Russian Federation and November 9, 1995 for Ukraine), as a minimum step, to institute and abide by an immediate moratorium on the death penalty.

According to official statistics, the government of Ukraine put to death eighty-nine individuals in the first six months of 1996 alone (total figures for the full year are not known). All of these were carried out subsequent to Ukraine's accession to the Council of Europe. As of September 24, 1996, the government of the Russian Federation reported it had carried out fifty-three executions in that year alone; Amnesty International believes that the total for the year was 140. The majority of these executions were carried out after the Russian Federation joined the Council of Europe.

We have supported the Council of Europe's repeated efforts to achieve compliance on this critical issue. However, the time has clearly past when condemnation and demands for compliance are sufficient. With so many lives having been lost in the last year alone, there can be no excuse for not enforcing compliance with the death penalty moratorium at a minimum. We are concerned that if the Parliamentary Assembly adopts another statement of condemnation delinked from consequences for the offending nations, it will squander the opportunity to spare the lives of death row inmates, one of the Council of Europe's stated motivations for admitting Ukraine and the Russian Federation as members in the first place. It will also jeopardize the credibility of the Council of Europe's own commitment to the abolition of capital punishment among member states.

As short-term measures only, we respectfully call on you to work with parliamentarians in this urgent debate to require the governments of the Russian Federation and of Ukraine to institute a death penalty moratorium and ratify Protocol No. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights within one month of the adoption of the decision. The decision should include specific provisions that failure to comply with these demands will result in the immediate implementation of all punitive actions outlined in Parliamentary Assembly Order No. 508 (1995). It should also make explicit that reinstatement with full membership privileges in the Council of Europe will be contingent upon such compliance.

Thank you for your consideration of these concerns.

Sincerely,

/s/

Holly Cartner

Executive Director

Human Rights Watch/Helsinki

cc: Chairmen of the Political Groups