This hearing, which Commissioner Alcee L. Hastings chaired, focused, on Russia, a country whose role had become larger and larger, with a more assertive take on Georgia, Russia’s neighbor to the south, as well as concurrent positions in the United Nations, the Group of 8, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE. In spite of an initially positive looking trajectory of representative government after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., since 2001, the Russian government had begun to recentralize power again. This has been perhaps best exemplified by the government’s curtailing of civil liberties.
While the Russian Federation has made progress in certain arenas as far as human rights are concerned (i.e. having heat in the winter, getting paid on time, and access to the judicial process), there has been a vocal and growing minority that is deeply concerned about Russia’s trajectory, and the Russian government has met these individuals’ concerns with heavy-handedness and brutality. To address this situation, Commissioner Hastings expressed the need to find new ways to have more frequent interaction and with all governmental branches, as well as a substantial and sustainable bilateral dialogue at the level of civil society.
