The Helsinki Commission held a briefing on the path to justice in southeastern Europe on October 7. Presenting his remarks at the briefing was Judge Theodor Meron, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Judge Meron began his remarks by underscoring the immensity of the task at hand. The vast scale of the crimes committed during the Yugoslav conflict, he said, "the murders, the rapes and deportations, the acts of torture, destruction and cruelty, would dwarf the capacity of any single court to bring more than a partial, a very partial reckoning." Nevertheless, he said, the tribunal struggles on, patiently and temperately disclosing the truth, giving the victims "a chance to see their sufferings recorded and at least in some small measure vindicated." Judge Meron asserted that the tribunal demonstrates the viciousness of those who built their power with hate-filled beliefs and sends a compelling message "that only through genuine reconciliation can all the peoples of the former Yugoslavia create thriving societies." Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) and Ranking Member Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) underscored the important role the tribunal plays. In his opening remarks, Chairman Smith explained that the court was a way of helping to break the climate of impunity and "ensuring that those responsible for heinous crimes would be held to account." Commissioner Cardin, likewise, described strong United States support for the court, saying that the United States Congressional Delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has raised the war crimes issue at every annual meeting in the last decade. Cardin has sponsored numerous initiatives over the years aimed at bolstering support for the work of the ICTY. The United States took a leading role in the creation of the ICTY, and funds approximately one quarter of its annual budget. Given the significance placed on the ICTY and its mission, three issues were highlighted: the compliance by participating States with ICTY demands; the implications of the ICTY's completion strategy; and, the procedural methods of the court. All three participants insisted on compliance from states in turning over indictees and granting increased access to evidence and archives. Commissioner Cardin recalled that "there are still indictees who have not been turned over to The Hague. Some highly visible indictees, such as Mladic and Karadzic, we've now been talking about for too many years." Judge Meron contended that while states in the region have increased their cooperation, such cooperation still needs to be made more complete. Sixteen indicted individuals, he explained, are still at large, including Serb army chief Ratko Mladic, Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, as well as Ante Gotovina, one-time Commander of the Split Military District. Meron said that the international community needs to use what he regards as its considerable leverage with the countries of the region to convince them to arrest and deliver to The Hague the most senior people allegedly responsible for war crimes. Meron noted improvements from Serbia-Montenegro, stating that he is "encouraged by the emerging spirit of cooperation in Belgrade which has produced some significant results in the last year." But, he said, more needs to be done. Serbia, he argued, must arrest Mladic, whose whereabouts, it is believed, are known; improve access to archives; and end the bottleneck in meeting the demands presented by the ICTY prosecutor. Meron said the tribunal is also "expecting maximum cooperation...from Zagreb" and insisted that "there is no bias or preference of the target of our cooperation." Judge Meron, however, reserved particularly harsh words for Republika Srpska. That entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, he said, "has not been cooperating at all.... There has been no compliance on their part, and much more international pressure is needed." With UN Security Council deadlines for completion approaching, Chairman Smith expressed his concern that key indictees would decide to simply wait out the tribunal's mandate. Judge Meron assured the Commission that the tribunal "will not move toward any closure before we have people like Mladic, Karadzic, and Ante Gotovina at The Hague." Smith expressed his full support for such a policy, stating that "to allow people like Mladic and Karadzic to escape justice by running out the clock would be a gross violation of human rights in and of itself." As part of the ICTY's completion strategy, Judge Meron said the court intended to transfer some low- to mid-level cases from the ICTY to competent courts in the region, in particular the special war crimes chamber within the newly reconstituted State Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo. He expressed his appreciation to the international community for supporting this body and hoped that the United States and others would follow through on their promises for generous financial contributions. In addition to improving the legal capacity to try war criminals, Meron praised the Sarajevo court for the training it will provide to lawyers and judges in the area and "the message of democracy and the rule of law that will be triggered by such a court." Because of the fragility of the social system in Bosnia-Herzegovina, every bench of the Sarajevo court will have two international judges and only one local judge. He expressed his desire that, over time, the social environment will change to allow the composition to be reversed to give more significant representation to local judges. When asked whether cases could be transferred to war crimes chambers and courts elsewhere in the region other than the Sarajevo court, Judge Meron said he did not believe it feasible at the moment. At the same time, he argued, "War crimes trials have the greatest resonance when they take place very close to the theater of crime, the place where the crimes have been committed, where the victims or their families still live." He said, therefore, that it was his hope to have "more and more trials conducted in the area." Given the approaching of Security Council deadlines, Judge Meron also discussed some procedural changes the ICTY has adopted in its completion strategy. He described several internal initiatives made by the court attempting to improve efficiency. The tribunal has reformed its procedures for interlocutor appeals to reduce the number of interruptions in the trial and has restricted prosecutorial evidence that judges deem duplicative or unnecessary. Its ability to finish working in a timely fashion, he said, also depends on the choices the prosecutor makes on future indictments. In response to a question from the audience, Judge Meron commented about the tribunal's sentencing procedures. The tribunal has at times been accused of meting out sentences that are not commensurate with the gravity of the crime committed. Others have accused the tribunal of passing sentences for some defendants that were much greater than sentences for others convicted of similar crimes. Without sentencing guidelines from the Security Council, Judge Meron said, the tribunal has had to create its own common law. He stated though that he had "no reason to believe that as a general proposition our sentencing has not been within the parameters of what I would consider to be just and reasonable." Nevertheless, Judge Meron said, he has formed a working group of several judges to address the sentencing issue because he believes there is no aspect of the tribunal's activities that cannot be improved further. The tribunal, according to Judge Meron, represents an enormous experiment in international cooperation. Starting almost from scratch, the ICTY had to create its own rules of procedure and evidence. This effort, the judge claimed, will have an impact even beyond the specific crimes considered. He concluded, "The sort of judgments that we will leave behind from very detailed problems of definitions of international crimes, on the interpretation of the evidence, on the conflicts of evidence, on how to reconcile the notions of common law and civil law, will prove to be, I think, a very important legacy to us all." This briefing was the latest in a series of United States Helsinki Commission events and other activities this year intended to promote justice in southeastern Europe through improved cooperation with the ICTY. The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine Senators, nine Representatives and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce.

By Marlene Kaufmann CSCE Counsel The United States Helsinki Commission held a hearing featuring the testimony of His Excellency Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Foreign Minister of The Netherlands and Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for 2003. The Foreign Minister testified on September 3, 2003 about the OSCE's efforts to promote security, stability and human rights in Europe and Eurasia. "In the last few years, we have come face to face with unprecedented challenges and threats to our security," said Minister de Hoop Scheffer. "The fight against terrorism is, and it should be, a top priority on our agenda." He noted that developing a comprehensive strategy to address new threats to security and stability will be the objective of OSCE Foreign Ministers in their upcoming meeting in Maastricht, The Netherlands, in early December. "We need to go beyond the repertoire of military action and policing as responses to security problems, and the OSCE can provide an impetus to this effort," he said. "No sustainable conflict resolution, let alone peace, can be achieved without due regard for human rights and democratization, for economic and environmental development, and without due regard for the rule of law." Other more surreptitious threats to security include organized crime, trafficking in human beings and illegal immigration, according to the Foreign Minister. Under de Hoop Scheffer's leadership, the Dutch Chairmanship has made combating human trafficking a priority and has secured the adoption of an OSCE action plan to combat trafficking in human beings to assist countries in confronting this modern day slavery whether they are countries of origin, transfer or countries of destination. The Minister explained that in support of this plan he intends to send missions of experts to assist countries in the fight against trafficking. The missions will draw on the expertise of OSCE institutions and will both monitor and take action against human trafficking. "Against this background, I feel sure that the Organization will be able to make an active, solid contribution to the fight," Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said. United States Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) welcomed the new OSCE effort. "I think it is a very realistic action plan . . . and it really adds to the common effort that we all need to take with regard to this modern-day slavery," said Smith, who has led the fight in Congress against human trafficking. Chairman Smith asked Minister de Hoop Scheffer to expand the anti-trafficking action plan to include the military in all OSCE countries, as well as policing and peacekeeping deployments throughout the region. Chairman Smith described his own efforts to make the U.S. military aware of this problem, including a request to the Army's Inspector General to investigate allegations of human trafficking at establishments frequented by U.S. military personnel in South Korea. An Ohio-based investigative news team revealed that women trafficked from Russia and the Philippines were being forced into prostitution in local clubs and bars surrounding U.S. bases and exposed the fact that uniformed U.S. military personnel understood the circumstances and yet did nothing to prevent or report the crime. According to Chairman Smith, the Inspector General took quick and decisive action to investigate the alleged activities and made specific recommendations to correct the matter. "The U.S. military has put more than 660 establishments, now seen for what they are, off limits to U.S. military as a direct result of this investigation," Mr. Smith said. Minister de Hoop Scheffer agreed that military and peacekeeping operations should be reviewed in strategies to combat human trafficking and said that the work being done by the U.S. military could serve as an example. The Minister also noted that NATO is undertaking a review of what its role should be in this regard. De Hoop Scheffer will take over as Secretary General of NATO in January, 2004. The Chairman-in-Office reviewed the work of the OSCE in combating anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination by highlighting the June conference held in Vienna regarding the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the OSCE region and strategies to combat it, as well as the September conference focused on efforts to combat racism, xenophobia and discrimination. Both Chairman Smith and Commission Member Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL), who participated in the June conference, urged de Hoop Scheffer to support another OSCE conference on anti-Semitism, which Germany has offered to host in Berlin in 2004. The Minister confirmed his support for such a conference saying, "having visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum this morning, having seen that, you need not have any other argument to go on fighting anti-Semitism." Commissioner Hastings queried Foreign Minister de Hoop Scheffer about his views on extending the term of the Chairman-in-Office from the current one year to two or three years, in view of the tremendous challenges facing the OSCE Chairmanship and the amount of work to be done. Mr. Hastings complimented the Minister, in particular, for the work he has done with Central Asian states. Calling his work as Chairman-in-Office "very challenging and a tremendously interesting responsibility," de Hoop Scheffer said he felt maintaining the one year term for the OSCE Chairmanship is the best way to proceed. He pointed to the work of the Troika, which is composed of the immediate past, current and upcoming Chairman-in-Office, who meet on a regular basis to discuss OSCE matters. The Minister has sought to strengthen this working group during his tenure and indicated that he felt this mechanism, along with the appointment of Special Representatives to focus on particular issues, serves to bring continuity to the leadership of the OSCE. Commissioner Hastings, who serves as a Vice President in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) also asked the Chairman-in-Office about what can be done to strengthen the working relationship between the OSCE and the OSCE PA. Mr. Hastings voiced hope that the Parliamentary Assembly would participate fully in the Maastricht Ministerial Meeting and that the OSCE and Assembly would continue to foster a working partnership. Viewing this issue from the perspective of his sixteen years of service in the Dutch Parliament, the Chairman-in-Office said he believes that the OSCE leadership has made substantial progress in its relationship with the Parliamentary Assembly. He welcomed the opening of the Parliamentary Assembly's Liaison Office in Vienna, headed by Ambassador Andreas Nothelle, as well as the active participation of Parliamentary Assembly President Bruce George in meetings of the Troika. The Foreign Minister said that he would continue to work to improve interaction between the OSCE and the Assembly. Minister de Hoop Scheffer further highlighted the actions of the OSCE by discussing regions in which the Organization has been particularly active--including Central Asia, Belarus, Moldova, Chechnya, and Georgia. Helsinki Commission Member Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA) voiced concern about the authoritarian rule in much of Central Asia and the Caucasus and its potential to move toward a family dynasty, as seems to be happening in Azerbaijan. The Chairman-in-Office expressed his view that Central Asian governments need particular attention from the OSCE, given that social changes brought about since the end of the Cold War have begun to stall. The Minister, who recently visited the five Central Asian countries, emphasized the importance of direct involvement with participating States in order to monitor and pressure for change. "The OSCE missions are the eyes and the ears of the organization," he said. Mr. de Hoop Scheffer, who also spoke with members of nongovernmental organizations in Turkmenistan, stressed the need to maintain communications between all OSCE states, because the alternative would be to expel them. "Would that improve the fate of the people in jails in Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan?" he asked rhetorically. "I don't think so, but it's the perpetual moral dilemma we have." Mr. Pitts and Minister de Hoop Scheffer also expressed concerns about the refusal of Belarus to fully participate in OSCE meetings and negotiations. The Chairman-in-Office mentioned that of particular concern are attempts by the Government of Belarus to restrict the media's independence. He said he would follow the situation critically and would take whatever necessary action was called for. In Moldova, the OSCE plans to step up its efforts to resolve the Moldova-Transdniestria conflict. The OSCE is focusing on a political settlement and preparations for post-settlement. The two parties understand that a peacekeeping operation may be in place during the transition activities, and the OSCE is discussing the possibility. Mr. de Hoop Scheffer called for Russia to reclaim its weapons and ammunition from Moldova before the end of the year. He also urged the United States and the European Union to assist conflict resolution efforts in Moldova. The OSCE is still pushing for cooperation between Chechnya and the Russian Federation, despite difficulties in negotiations. The OSCE has developed a program aimed at benefitting the Chechen population and improving areas such as the judiciary and public order, economic and social developments, re-integration of displaced people, and media development. De Hoop Scheffer said violence and political obstacles have made negotiations in the area difficult. But he remained positive about a program to affect change. "I believe that the Russian Federation and the OSCE have a common interest in defining such a program," he said, adding the human suffering and material costs of this conflict are immense. The Maastricht Ministerial Meeting will set the agenda for the OSCE's future work and will address modern threats to security and stability, the Chairman-in-Office said. The meeting will take up human trafficking, economic and environmental issues, and review of field missions and peacekeeping. The conference will also be open to nongovernmental organizations, which de Hoop Scheffer said have been crucial to helping bring about change. The Chairman-in-Office concluded his testimony by stressing the importance of multilateral efforts and of the continued support of the United States. "That is one of the reasons why, with full candor, I have shared my impressions, convictions, and intentions for the coming period with you," he said. "In short, it takes a joint effort by the entire OSCE community to make this organization work." The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine senators, nine representatives, and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce.   United States Helsinki Commission Intern Lauren Smith contributed to this article.

Numerous international documents, including those adopted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), establish freedom of expression as a fundamental right. The right to free speech, however, is not absolute. Consistent with international law, certain kinds of speech, such as obscenity, may be prohibited or regulated. When governments restrict speech, however, those restrictions must be consistent with their international obligations and commitments; for example, the restrictions must be necessary in a democratic country and proscribed by law. Criminal defamation and "insult" laws are often defended as necessary to prevent alleged abuses of freedom of expression. They are not, however, consistent with OSCE norms and their use constitutes an infringement on the fundamental right to free speech. Criminal Defamation Laws All individuals, including public officials, have a legitimate right to protect their reputations if untruthful statements have been made about them. Untrue statements which damage a person's reputation constitute defamation. Oral defamation is known as slander; defamation in writing or other permanent forms such as film is libel. In some instances, criminal codes make defamation of public officials, the nation, or government organs a discreet offense, as distinct from defamation of a person. Truthful statements--as well as unverifiable statements of opinion--are not legally actionable as defamation. Indeed, the European Court of Human Rights has held that public officials must tolerate a greater degree of criticism than private individuals: "The limits of acceptable criticism are accordingly wider as regards a politician as such than as regards a private individual. Unlike the latter, the former inevitably and knowingly lays himself open to close scrutiny of his every word and deed by both journalists and the public at large, and he must consequently display a greater degree of tolerance." (Lingens v. Austria, Eur. Ct. H.R., 1986.) Criminal defamation laws are those which establish criminal sanctions for defamation. Those sanctions may include imprisonment, fines, and prohibitions on writing. Individuals convicted of defamation in a criminal proceeding and sentenced to suspended prison terms may be subjected to the threat of immediate imprisonment if, for example, they violate an order not to publish. The existence of a criminal record may also have other social and legal consequences. In a criminal defamation case, state law enforcement agents (police and prosecutors)--using taxpayer money--investigate and prosecute the alleged defamation on behalf of the complainant. It is sometimes argued that criminal defamation laws are necessary to achieve the legitimate goal of providing the victims of defamation with redress. But general laws against libel and slander, embodied in civil codes, provide private persons as well as public officials the opportunity to seek redress, including damages, for alleged defamation. In such cases, the plaintiff and defendant stand in court as equals. Accordingly, specific criminal laws prohibiting defamation are unnecessary. "Insult" Laws "Insult" laws make offending the "honor and dignity" of public officials (e.g., the President), government offices (e.g., the Constitutional Court), national institutions, and/or the "state" itself punishable. Unlike defamation laws, truth is not a defense to a charge of insult. Accordingly, insult laws are often used to punish the utterance of truthful statements, as well as opinions, satire, invective, and even humor. Although insult laws and criminal defamation laws both punish speech, significant differences exist between them. Defamation laws are intended to provide a remedy against false assertions of fact. Truthful statements, as well as opinion, are not actionable. The use of civil laws to punish defamation is permissible under international free speech norms. The use of criminal sanctions to punish defamation, however, chills free speech, is subject to abuse (through the use of state law enforcement agents), and is inconsistent with international norms. In contrast, recourse to any insult law, whether embodied in a civil or a criminal code, is inconsistent with international norms. Their Use Today At one time, almost all OSCE countries had criminal defamation and insult laws. Over time, these laws have been repealed, invalidated by courts, or fallen into disuse in many OSCE participating States. Unfortunately, many criminal codes contained multiple articles punishing defamation and insult. Thus, even when parliaments and courts have acted, they have sometimes failed to remove all legal prohibitions against insult or all criminal sanctions for defamation. In communist countries and other anti-democratic regimes, such laws are often used to target political opponents of the government. Today, when insult and criminal defamation laws are used, they are most often used to punish mere criticism of government policies or public officials, to stifle political discussion, and to squelch news and discussion that governments would rather avoid. It is relatively rare for a private individual (someone who is not a public official, elected representative, or person of means and influence) to persuade law enforcement representatives to use the tax dollars of the public to protect their reputations. In some OSCE countries, such laws are still used systematically to punish political opponents of the regime. Even in countries where these laws have fallen into a long period of disuse, it is not unheard of for an overzealous prosecutor to revive them for seemingly political purposes. The International Context Numerous non-governmental organizations have taken strong positions against criminal defamation and insult laws. These include Amnesty International; Article 19; the Committee to Protect Journalists; national non-governmental Helsinki committees such as the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, Croatian Helsinki Committee, Greek Helsinki Committee, Romanian Helsinki Committee, and Slovak Helsinki Committee; the International Helsinki Federation; The World Press Freedom Committee; Norwegian Forum for Freedom of Expression; national chapters of PEN; and Reporters Sans Frontières. Moreover, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, and the Organization of American States Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression issued a joint statement in February 2000 which included the following conclusions, based on relevant international norms: "Expression should not be criminalized unless it poses a clear risk of serious harm. [. . . ] Examples of this are laws prohibiting the publication of false news and sedition laws. . . . These laws should be repealed." "Criminal defamation laws should be abolished." "Civil defamation laws should respect the following principles: public bodies should not be able to bring defamation actions; truth should always be available as a defense; politicians and public officials should have to tolerate a greater degree of criticism. . . ."[1] Finally, the United States Department of State regularly reports on cases where criminal defamation or insult laws have been used in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and, at OSCE meetings, has frequently called for the repeal of such laws in recent years. Criminal Defamation and Insult Laws in Armenia Since Armenia gained independence in 1991, there have been mixed developments regarding freedom of speech and a free press. There is no outright censorship in Armenia and a plurality of views can be found in the press. Nevertheless, there are reasons for concern. In April 2002, for example, two independent television stations, Noyan Tapan and A1+, had their broadcasting licenses revoked in what was widely seen as a politically motivated move. Subsequent efforts to renew those licenses have failed; as recently as October 13, 2003, A1+ was turned down again. In October 2002, independent journalist Mark Grigorian--then preparing an investigative report on the 1999 terrorist attack in the Parliament which resulted in eight deaths--was himself the victim of a grenade attack (which he survived). In December 2002, Tigran Nagdalian, Chairman of the National Public Television Board, was murdered. In April 2003, journalist Mger Galechian was seriously beaten after the newspaper for which he worked, Chorrord Ishkanutyun, ran an article critical of the head of Armenia's National Security Services. Journalists were also the victims of harassment and intimidation during presidential elections in 2003. On September 27, 2003, Gayone Mukoyan, editor-in-chief of Yerevan's Or newspaper, was beaten. In addition, in February 2002 the government released a draft law on mass media which, according to Freedom House, would "require journalists to pay for interviews with officials and create a government agency to 'monitor' the media."[2] Although the bill's worst elements have been removed, journalists still view the pending draft as inadequate. In September 2003, the National Press Club in Yerevan organized demonstrations outside the Armenia parliament against the draft law. The use of criminal defamation or insult laws in Armenia does not appear to be the regime's first line of defense against the opposition. Nevertheless, it is a tool that public leaders have been consistently willing to use against their critics. In 2000, for example, Nikol Pashinyan, editor-in-chief of the Yerevan-based opposition newspaper Aykakan Zhamanak was charged with insult and given a suspended sentence. Charges were brought against poet Dzanik Adamyan in 2002 as well as against Dzhema Saakyan (who reportedly typed the poems on a typewriter), but the charges were dropped after Adamyan spent two months in prison and Saakyan spent a few days in the custody of police. Pashinyan was charged again with insult in April 2002; those charges were eventually dropped. On April 18, 2003, the National Assembly adopted Armenia's first post-Soviet penal code. That bill was signed into law by the president on April 30, 2003. Unfortunately, the new penal code effectively renumbered, but did not repeal, those articles criminalizing defamation and insult. On June 19, 2003, Ambassador Roy Reeve, Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, sent an open letter to Artur Bagdasaryan, the newly elected Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia. (The letter was also signed by members of the informal Media Legislation Working Group including representatives of the Embassies of the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Italy, Romania, Poland and ten representatives of non-governmental organizations.[3]) The writers called for the decriminalization of defamation and insult and further criticized the fact that the code envisions greater penalties for insult of government officials than for ordinary citizens. According to the regular report to the OSCE Permanent Council submitted on July 31, 2003, by Freimut Duve, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Duve also wrote to the Armenian Foreign Minister expressing concern regarding this matter. The views of OSCE officials, non-governmental organizations, and members of Yerevan's diplomatic community have met with mixed reactions. On the one hand, Parliamentary Speaker Artur Bagdasaryan pledged that parliament would review the criminal code. On the other hand, Parliament Deputy Speaker Tigran Torosian initially rejected these views as "interference in Armenia's internal affairs."[4] In fact, the 1991 OSCE Moscow Document, accepted by Armenia when it joined the OSCE in 1992, explicitly states that the OSCE participating States "categorically and irrevocably declare that the commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the [OSCE] are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating States and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concerned." Meanwhile, Manvel Grigorian, one of the drafters of the new penal code, responded by arguing that defamation is a criminal offense in all other member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (i.e., those countries which, like Armenia, inherited a communist penal code) as well as some countries like Germany. While it is true that other post-Soviet countries have failed to repeal their communist-era criminal defamation and insult laws, the clear trend in post-communist Central Europe--where democratic reform is generally more advanced--is to decriminalize defamation and abolish insult laws. This incremental process[5] continues to move in a singular direction: criminal defamation and insult laws have been repealed or struck down (in whole or in part) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. In May 2003, the Romanian Government proposed a new penal code with sweeping and positive changes to the current provisions on insult and defamation; that draft is before the parliament. Countries like Germany--longtime members of the Council of Europe--have already had their criminal defamation or insult laws somewhat "neutralized" through the European Court of Human Right's case law. Those countries where the implementation of an archaic criminal defamation or insult law contradicts the European Court's evolving and elevating norms pay a price--literally--for doing so.[6] Relevant Armenia Laws The articles of the Armenian penal code which are not consistent with Armenia's freely undertaken OSCE commitments include: Article 135. Libel. Dissemination of false information humiliating a person's good reputation, dignity and honor, is punishable by a fine in the amount of 50 to 150 times the minimum salary, or correctional labor for up to one year. Libel through public speeches, publicly demonstrated works or through mass media, is punishable by a fine in the amount of 100 to 200 times the minimum salary, or correctional labor for one to two years, or with arrest for up to two months. Actions envisaged in parts 1 or 2 of this Article, accompanied with accusation of the person committing grave or particularly grave crime, are punishable by correctional labor for up to two years, or with arrest for the term of one to two months, or with imprisonment for up to three years. Article 136. Insult. Insult is the improper humiliation of another person's honor and dignity and is punishable by a fine in the amount of up to 100 times the minimum salary, or correctional labor for up to six months. Insult manifested in public speeches, in publicly demonstrated works or by mass media, is punishable by a fine in the amount of 50 to 200 times the minimum salary, or correctional work for up to one year. Article 318. Insulting a Representative of the Authorities. Publicly insulting a representative of authorities, in relation to the duties carried out by him, is punishable by a fine in the amount of 100 to 200 times the minimum salary, or correctional labor for six months to one year. The same act expressed in public speeches, in publicly demonstrated works, or by mass media, is punished with a fine in the amount of 200 to 400 times the minimum salary, or with arrest for a term of one to three months, or with imprisonment for a term of up to two years.   1. See: "Statement Regarding Key Issues and Challenges in Freedom of Expression," agreed by Santiago Canton, OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Freimut Duve, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, and Abid Hussain, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, February 2000, www.article19.org. See also: "Insult Laws: An Insult to Press Freedom," published by The World Press Freedom Committee, www.wpfc.org. 2. Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2003 (www.freedomhouse.org). 3. The non-governmental organizations were: the Eurasia Foundation, the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation-Armenia, the London-based Article 19, ABA/CEELI, the Yerevan Press Club; the Association of Investigative Journalists, Internews, ProMedia, Media Law Institute, and Caucasus Media Institute. The full text of the letter is at: http://www.osce.org/news/generate. pf.php3?news_id=3358. 4. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline, 23 June 2003 (www.rferl.org). 5. The abolition of criminal defamation and insult laws has been achieved both through the adoption of new penal codes and through high court rulings striking down laws deemed inconsistent with the national constitution and/or international law. In most Central European countries, this process has resulted in a gradual diminishing of the numbers of articles in the penal code that punish defamation or insult. 6. It is nowhere argued that Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms prohibited criminal defamation or insult laws at the time of its adoption in 1950. Indeed, Article 10 of the European Convention is frequently decried by free speech advocates as the most restrictive free speech provision of any of the major international agreements on human rights. Many of the first countries to join the Council of Europe had criminal defamation or insult laws at the time they ratified the Convention. Nevertheless, since 1950, the cases of the European Court on Human Rights demonstrate evolving concepts of free speech (concepts most clearly articulated by the OAS, UN and OSCE Special Rapporteurs quoted in the first part of this report). Thus, while the Court has never ruled that a criminal defamation or insult law is per se in violation of the European Convention, the actual implementation of such a law runs a substantial risk of being found to violate the Convention. In 2002, for example, France was required to pay 4,096.46 Euros to a plaintiff who had been charged with insulting a foreign head of state (the King of Morocco). That same year, Finland was required to pay 8,400 Euros to a plaintiff who had been charged with criminal defamation (with 13 percent interest on the pecuniary damages and 11 percent interest on non-pecuniary damages). As a consequence of this judicial trend--and perhaps an increasing understanding of the civil alternatives to criminal prosecution for defamation--such laws are increasingly viewed as anachronisms. The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine Senators, nine Representatives and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce.