PACE adopts resolution on access of int’l monitoring bodies to breakaway areas

The PACE resolution was adopted on the basis of the report by PACE member Frank Schwabe from Germany. Photo: echrblog.blogspot.com.

Agenda.ge, 11 Oct 2018 - 12:57, Tbilisi,Georgia

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has adopted a resolution which calls upon member states to allow for unlimited access of the Council of Europe and United Nations monitoring bodies on their territories.

The resolution also urged states to cooperate with de facto leaderships to ensure such access to occupied territories, and mentioned the Georgian occupied regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia).

The assembly welcomed instances in which these monitoring bodies have obtained access to ‘grey zones’, territories of states that are under the control of de facto authorities, citing in particular visits by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to Transnistria and Abkhazia”, the PACE statement reads.  

However, the activities of human rights monitoring bodies regarding territories under the control of de facto authorities do not constitute recognition of those authorities’ legitimacy under international law, the parliamentarians stated,” the statement reads.

PACE called on the Committee of Ministers to hold an urgent meeting whenever the Council of Europe human rights monitoring body is denied access, or allowed access only on conditions that are politically unacceptable or incompatible with the body’s mandate, the statement says.