'Integration is Better than Isolation': The Implications of Russian Membership in the Council of Europe for the Organization and its Member States

• In Event: The Role of Courts in Eurasia

Abstract

How should international organizations founded on advancing human rights, democracy, and the
rule of law promote those values in states aspiring to membership? Russia’s post-Soviet plea to join the Council of Europe, followed by highs and more frequent lows over the next 26 years, presents a case study that now has a beginning, middle, and end. Russia’s early, sincere, but weakly grounded interest in membership presented a devilish problem of practical definition: just how much reform should be enough to join an organization for which the rule of law, pluralist democracy, and respect for human rights were prerequisites?

Author

• Jeffrey David Kahn, American U