The chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the State Duma, Alexei Pushkov, made statements today on the results of the international round table 'Topical international legal problems of the XXI century', organized by the State Duma and the Foreign Ministry with the participation of the Institute of Europe of the RAS, the A.M. Gorchakov Fund for Support of Public Diplomacy, the Kutafin Moscow State Law University and the Russian Historical Society.
Both politicians drew attention to the problems experienced by international law today, a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza reports.
Konstantin Kosachev assessed the situation as the most serious crisis of the post-war period. According to him, the fact, that there was no adequate response to the massive violations of international law by a group of Western powers, led by the United States, causes special concerns. "This process started from the unilateral US' withdrawal from the agreement on missile defense and the refusal of NATO to ratify the adapted Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Russia all this time was trying to preserve the supremacy of the United Nations, save the system of international treaties, which provided the balance of power in the world, both military and economic, and political," Kosachev said, recognizing that today Russia is supported by the partners in the EEU, the BRICS and the SCO.
"Alas, that is not enough, because our opponents are countries which are not interested in the system of international law in its current form. I am convinced that the historical truth is on the side of the position of the Russian Federation, and this position is getting more and more supporters and allies," the chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs committee concluded.
Alexei Pushkov, in his turn, focused on the sanctions imposed against parliamentarians. "Some foreign members of our round table, particularly the representatives of Switzerland and Finland, spoke about the unacceptability of the inclusion of parliamentarians on the sanctions lists in connection with the fact that they are elected by the population of their countries to express their point of view. They should be based on their own understanding of the situation and what their citizens want. In this respect, the EU sanctions against the parliamentarians are contrary to international law," he pointed out.
The consequence of this abuse of power by the EU is, in particular, the latest scandal involving the prohibition of the Russian deputies from attending the PA OSCE session in Helsinki. "This is the most obvious example, when 28 European Union countries prevented the participation of the Russian national delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, which unites 57 countries. It's illegal character is quite obvious," Alexei Pushkov said.
According to him, the Russian delegation intends to present the project of the ban on such sanctions at the PA OSCE session in Helsinki. "We believe that the EU should exclude parliamentarians from the sanctions list. In this case, the Russian side will also agree on the exclusion of European Parliamentarians of the restrictive lists, which we imposed as a retaliatory measure, after the EU stood on the wrong path," Alexei Pushkov concluded.
