Speeches January session 2009

Monday 26 January 2009 at 11.30 a.m

Progress report of the Bureau of the Assembly and the Standing Committee

Mr KOX (Netherlands). – This morning we reconstituted our Assembly, as we do every year. We examined credentials, we elected the President and Vice-Presidents and we reconstituted our committees. That is necessary to do our job of organising debates, discussing issues such as the Iceland crisis and Gaza, and inviting guests, even the President of the United States.

However, we do not only need those formalities. We need something else: money. I am therefore grateful that the rapporteur mentioned the problem of money in this, our first sitting. The problem is a recurring one, because each year we reconstitute our Assembly and each year we face the same problem. It is not a problem of millions or even billions; it is a problem of peanuts, which is caused by our Committee of Ministers.

I would like to ask the rapporteur why he thinks the Committee of Ministers always throws sand instead of fuel into the Council of Europe’s political engine, as the President called it. Is the reason that we are not working hard enough – that could be a good argument – or is it that we are sometimes too active and too critical? We have to find the reason for our recurring financial crisis in order to solve it. I have another question for the rapporteur. How could the problem best be solved? Should we do it here or in our national parliaments?

I have a second question. It is not only the Assembly that has recurring financial problems but the European Court of Human Rights. I know that the Committee of Ministers always refers to what is happening in the country of my neighbour in the Chamber, the Russian Federation, which does not want to ratify Protocol No. 14. If it did so, quite a lot of problems in the Court would be solved. However, Russia’s not doing that is not a reason for the Committee of Ministers not to solve those problems in another way. We cannot use someone not doing what he should do as a reason not to guarantee the right of access of all Europeans to the European Court of Human Rights. My second question, therefore, is this. Does the rapporteur have any creative ideas for solving the problems of the Court and the Assembly?

Monday 26 January 2009 at 3 p.m.

Statement by Mr Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

Mr KOX (Netherlands). – Mr Secretary General, we elected you five years ago to the highest elected post in the Council of Europe and I was one of those who voted in your favour. You still have six months’ work ahead, but how do you look back on the relationship between you, the Committee of Ministers and this Assembly? As I said this morning, why is the Committee of Ministers always putting sand rather than fuel into the political engine, as the President calls the Assembly? What did we do wrong to deserve such a horrible fate? Can you enlighten us?

THE PRESIDENT (Translation). – Thank you. Would you, Mr Davis, respond to that question?

Mr DAVIS. – The full answer will be given in one of the lectures that I deliver after the end of proceedings on Monday.

On the specific point about the Assembly, it made one big mistake last year in connection with its budget. I asked all the heads and directors general, the Secretary General of the Assembly, the Secretary General of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, the registrar of the Court and everyone else to assist us by looking for 2% efficiency savings – not across the board but as a guideline. I had to find 2% overall. Only four parts of the Council of Europe rejected my request. Those four were the Court, the Commissioner for Human Rights, the Congress and the Assembly. That was in the paper that I presented – I had not been offered anything by those four bodies. As a result, the Committee of Ministers understandably said that those bodies should contribute and look for efficiency savings just like everyone else. In my next set of proposals I asked for 1% and the Committee of Ministers said, “No, the Assembly should be treated the same as everybody else – 2%.” Under the financial regulations, it is for the Assembly to decide how to find that 2%.

We know what Mr Svetsky recommended throughout the Bureau in Barcelona. My advice to the Assembly is that it was a mistake to put itself in the position of refusing to be any more efficient. Other people have to contribute towards efficiency and I find it incredible that the Assembly should say that it cannot do anything more efficiently – not one thing. That puts the Assembly in a very weak position vis-à-vis the Committee of Ministers, and I ask it to take that into account this year.

Access to rights for people with disabilities and their full and active participation in society

Mr LECOQ (France) congratulated the rapporteur on an excellent report. There were 200 million people in Europe with disabilities, which was a challenge to everyone. The action plan contained a large number of political activities. In France, a technical committee had been established, based on assistance and solidarity. The law of 1987 had created an obligation on both public and private sector organisations to ensure that 6% of their workforce was made up of staff with disabilities. That target had not been reached despite the imposition of financial sanctions; many firms seemed to prefer to pay the fine rather than meet their obligations. A 2005 law had focused on the quality of citizenship, in education, transport, housing and other areas. It was essential that the state facilitate access to social life and give specific support. Generalised integration could not replace targeted policies that would benefit people with disabilities. The attitude of society could be an obstacle to people with disabilities as they sought to lead a full life. It was important to campaign to change attitudes and ensure people with disabilities had the same rights as everyone else. The report was a step in the right direction. Some people of course had multiple disabilities. Much remained to be done.

Tuesday 27 January 2009 at 10 a.m.

The implementation by Armenia of Assembly Resolutions 1609 (2008) and 1620 (2008)

Mr JACOBSEN (Norway). – What happened in Armenia – to an extent, it is still going on – was wrong by our democratic standards. However, it would not have been right for the Council of Europe to punish the parliamentary delegation for something for which the Armenian Government is responsible. At the same time, we have found that the threat of removing the voting rights of the Armenian delegation has worked. Mr Prescott said, “Go there again.” He said that the Council of Europe would not run away, that it would face the problem, go there and use civil means, and have a debate with the government. That is how we want to work.

There has been positive development in improving democracy in Armenia, and I hope that when we meet in April we will see more of that development. It is up to the Armenian authorities to do what they have to do if Armenia wants to be seen as a real democracy. We are giving Armenia more time to take another step towards democracy. It might not be a lot of time, especially when you consider that it can take centuries to develop democracy, but with the help of the Council of Europe, that is possible.

It will be interesting to listen to the members of the Armenian delegation. Perhaps we will make a good start this morning by hearing real evidence of the willingness to support reconciliation and to put democracy into practice. After all, the Council of Europe is the training centre for democracy for all. The Group of the Unified European Left supports what the Assembly wants to do.

Tuesday 27 January 2009 at 3 p.m.

Co-operation with the International Criminal Court and its universality

Mr KOX (Netherlands). – Yesterday in The Hague we witnessed the opening of the trial against Thomas Lubanga from the DRC. He is charged with the crime of systematically abusing children by using child soldiers in the civil war in north-east Congo. More than 30 witnesses, some of them ex-child soldiers, will testify in The Hague and at least 90 victims will directly participate in the trial. It is, as has been said, an historic trial whatever the outcome.

The Statute of Rome has been ratified by 108 countries and signed by 42. Those numbers look better than they are, because large countries such as the United States of America and the Russian Federation have only just ratified it. Even worse, the United States Government actively tries to sabotage the ratification process. In 2002, the US Congress adopted the so-called American Service-members’ Protection Act, which allows the United States to undertake any action needed to liberate American citizens for committing crimes while being in United States service somewhere. Opponents call it “The Hague Invasion Act”, foreseeing the possibility of a future American military invasion of my country, which hosts the International Criminal Court. The idea behind the act is shameful.

Since 2002, the government of President Bush has also pressed many other governments to sign mutual agreements that guarantee that American citizens are not brought to justice at the ICC in The Hague. In my opinion, that is one of the most counterproductive and aggressive steps that the United States has taken in the past eight years and it has contributed very much to the devaluation of the status of the world’s only remaining superpower. I hope that President Obama takes the initiative to change that negative course of his country as it relates to the ICC and international justice. His decision to close Guantánamo Bay prison and to ban torture gives us some reason to have hope. If the United States wants to reshape its international image as a country that commits itself fully to international law, one of the steps it needs to take is to end the sabotage of the ICC.

Change in the United States in that regard is important because, as the excellent report by Mrs Däubler-Gmelin shows clearly, adequate international justice needs an International Criminal Court, because that will help to end those situations in which people can commit horrible crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression without being brought to justice. For that reason, it is necessary for the Assembly to use all its abilities to promote universal ratification of the Rome Statute. Up to now, eight Council of Europe member states have failed to ratify it. Among them are the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Turkey. The questionnaire of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights shows that Armenia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic have indicated that they will ratify the statute, and the rapporteur tells us that she has some indication that Turkey will do the same at some point in the future.

More problematic are Azerbaijan and Monaco, which refuse to ratify, and the Russian Federation, which until now has not given a clear reaction to the committee’s request. I am anxious to hear whether there is some development in those countries. As the report shows, ratification of the Rome Statute does not go against the national judicial system, but instead favours it. Ratifying the statute will lead to improvements in the national judicial system, as the ICC complements national jurisdictions.

On the observer states to the Council of Europe and this Assembly, the good news comes from Japan, which ratified the Rome Statute one and a half years ago. It would be great to receive a similar message in the near future from Israel, which is also an observer to this Assembly. The recent horrible events in Gaza show once more how much we need to have the possibility of investigating whether people have committed crimes as set out in Article 5 of the Rome Statute, be it by a national court or, if a country is unable or unwilling to use its jurisdiction, by the ICC. I would like to hear from our Israeli colleagues what actions they can and want to take to convince their government to sign the Rome Statute, which it has resisted so far, and for the Knesset to ratify it in the near future.

We all have to step up our efforts to promote universal ratification. All our groups have members who belong to parliaments that did not ratify the Rome Statute. I will propose that my group puts the item of ratification of this tremendously important statute on this year’s agenda, and I invite colleagues in other groups to do the same, hoping that we can at least convince all members of this Assembly that universal ratification of the Rome Statute is a clear consequence of the goals of this Assembly and the meaning of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Investigation of crimes allegedly committed by high officials during the Kuchma rule in Ukraine – the Gongadze case as an emblematic example

Mr MARMAZOV (Ukraine) said that it was about nine years since Gongadze’s death. Criminal investigations were still being carried out but there was no light at the end of the tunnel. If this issue could be brought to resolution, much would be achieved. If the Monitoring Committee could visit Ukraine, it would be able to uncover more information. In the meantime, it was necessary to focus on the report which was objective and listed what needed to be done.

It was true that the Ukraine did not have full faith in the ongoing investigations, but the text of the draft resolution illustrated that a lot of work was going on in the Ukraine. The question of who was behind the murder of Gongadze would only be solved when an internal committee had had an opportunity to look at the film in order to decide whether it was authentic or not. There was also the issue of General Pukach’s guilt. Only when these matters had been addressed would the Gongadze problem be resolved.

Mr Melnychenko had been reluctant to hand over the tapes. This had now happened and they would be passed to the relevant international group. With regard to General Pukach, the support of the international community was needed to reach a resolution.

The UEL fully supported the text of the draft resolution.

Nomination of candidates and election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights

Mr KOX (Netherlands). – The election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights is one of the few real powers of this Assembly. It is a limited power; the Assembly makes its choice from a list of candidates submitted by the governments of our member states. However, it is a real power and our sub-committee on the election of judges demands of all governments proposals that meet the highest criteria in order to guarantee that all citizens receive justice at the European Court of Human Rights, and that they have the best quality of judgment in their cases.

On behalf of my group, I pay tribute to the sub-committee for helping us to elect judges. Although that work is excellent, it does not mean that any decision of the sub-committee is guaranteed to be the best decision, but in the years that I have been a member of this Assembly, I have found it useful to get the advice of the sub-committee when I need help in electing a judge. To further improve the work of the sub-committee, thereby improving the decisions of this Assembly, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights now presents us with a report on nominating candidates and electing judges to the ECHR. The rapporteur – I thank him for his report – proposes that the Assembly ask member states to set up appropriate national selection procedures, including public open calls for candidatures, as well as a mechanism to ensure that all candidates have an active knowledge of one of the official languages and a passive knowledge of another.

To put pressure on the governments concerned, the rapporteur proposes that lists based on procedures that do not meet the criteria of the sub-committee should be rejected by the Assembly. The question whether the Assembly can decide to reject lists that do not meet the criteria is, in my opinion, arbitrary, as it is the sub-committee that decides whether there will be a list on which the Assembly can decide. I read the proposal in such a way that the Assembly reaffirms the right of the sub-committee to reject a list that does not meet the criteria. If so, there will not be a list for us to decide on, because the sub-committee will not have proposed one.

For my group, it is enough to reaffirm that that the sub-committee has that right. I do not want to say exactly what it should do, only to make clear what it may do. That includes its right to interpret the criteria in a creative way if necessary, if that will help the small countries in particular to produce an adequate list that meets the criteria and ensures the realistic possibility of having a judge of their country serve on the ECHR. With the support of my group for the work of the sub-committee, I also ask it and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to help small countries in the Assembly to overcome their problems in producing an adequate list of three candidates. It is not for me to say how that should happen. We should not prescribe what the committee has to do, but we should give it ample opportunity to continue its work. I congratulate the rapporteur on the report.

I have a final remark for Mr Evans. If the Conservative party tends not to select women, that is not so much because of gender but because of ideology. More progressive women in these committees would perhaps solve your problem.

Wednesday 28 January 2009 at 10 a.m.

The consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia

Mr LAAKSO (Finland). – It is time that we concentrated on the future tasks of the Council of Europe and the concerns regarding this conflict. Perhaps emotions are not running as high as during the previous discussion. That is why there is an opportunity to concentrate on finding the steps that will help to stabilise the situation in the area.

My group regrets that the role of the Council of Europe was quite small in the middle of the conflict itself. At the same time, we thank Mr Hammarberg for the role that he played, which was excellent and showed that the Council of Europe could play an important role in the area. However, we regret the statement made at the time by the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, Mr Bildt. He may even have consciously made that statement, which became an obstacle to the Council of Europe being active in the process. However, that is over now.

We need field offices in the area. The rapporteurs are right to propose that we should have a presence there. We must have an observation mission in the area. There cannot be any black holes there. That is why it is right that we are status-neutral with regard to what concerns Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but we can have field offices in the area. They could be part of our observation mission. At the same time, that would not replace the OSCE role.

I must comment on Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It seems that there are some in our Assembly who believe that, if Russia does not withdraw its recognition, it will be such an obstacle to future co-operation between Russia and the Council of Europe that even sanctions should be considered. I remind you that, for a long time, since 1974, Turkey has recognised Northern Cyprus. We disagree, but we have not put that as an obstacle to co-operation with Turkey.

It is time to emphasise the necessity of dialogue between Georgia and Russia, Georgia and Abkhazia, and Georgia and South Ossetia. It is our task to find a forum where all sides can have that dialogue.

Mr KESKIN (Germany) said that the war between Georgia and the Russian Federation had shocked him. The terrible pictures of those killed and fleeing the region had left a deep impression on his memory. In the 21st century, war could not, and should not, replace politics. War did not solve problems; it only created new injustice.

Georgia had the right to protect itself against secession but the cause of the unrest needed to be taken into consideration. Resolution of the conflict could not be imposed, it had to be agreed; and the cause of the problems would need to be settled. Organisations such as the United Nations had been working in the region for over one and a half decades to try to resolve tensions there. The war had resulted in a human catastrophe involving many victims. He called on those in the region to cease military activities.

Communication from the Committee of Ministers

Mr JACOBSEN (Norway) asked how the Council of Europe could play a more active role in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in order to help the 20 000 displaced people who wanted to return home.

THE PRESIDENT (Translation). – Thank you. Would you like to answer that question, Mr Moratinos?

Mr MORATINOS said that members of parliament sometimes felt fatalistic about events. The Committee of Ministers would try to find an action plan. The Swedish chairmanship had left a plan behind but it had been difficult to achieve consensus. He wanted to provide assurance that, if no consensus were reached, the Spanish chairmanship would take action. It would be prepared to go into the region to defend citizens’ rights.

Wednesday 28 January 2009 at 3 p.m.

The consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia - resumed debate

Mr LOTMAN (Estonia). – In our previous discussion about the war between two of our member states, it was my strong feeling that the event was too tragic for us even to congratulate the rapporteurs. It simply seemed somehow inappropriate. This judgment is still valid today. However, I add my voice to those who say that the rapporteurs have basically done a good job. Even though some improvements could clearly be made, the rapporteurs are still to be thanked. I also express my strong support for the amendments proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, which would make the report even better.

The consensus that emerged in my party group, the Group of the Unified European Left, in the previous part-session – that the main victim of the war was the civilian population – is still as valid as ever. The seriousness of the concerns that have been expressed about the humanitarian situation has been confirmed by independent human rights NGOs, especially Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. For me, that is also the main message of the report on the humanitarian consequences of the war; hence no effort must be spared in solving the humanitarian crisis or securing respect for human rights. Furthermore, all obstacles to the effective distribution of humanitarian aid and monitoring of the human rights situation must be removed now.

The consensus that emerged in the Estonian delegation – that the invasion of Georgia by the Russian Army constitutes an act of military aggression – is also as valid as ever. It is also clear that Russia is continuing the military occupation of part of the sovereign territory of Georgia. It is thus crucial not to allow this situation to be legitimised in any way.

The fact that both sides of the conflict bear their share of responsibility for the civilian suffering has been well documented by Human Rights Watch. However, it is the South Ossetian paramilitary forces allied to the Russian Army which have carried out the “ethnic cleansing” of Georgian villages in the conflict zone. The Russian Government is clearly responsible for these actions, which were carried out by its allies on territory controlled by its armed forces.

The violation of international humanitarian law by both sides has been confirmed by human rights organisations. It has also been confirmed that the occupation of Georgian territory by the Russian Army is contributing to the worsening of the situation. Also, as I have mentioned before, Russian armed forces, which are guilty of multiple civilian deaths and the systematic abuse of human rights in Chechnya, have no moral credibility to act as a self-proclaimed international saviour. This simple fact has been noted by one speaker here, but regrettably it has been overlooked by several others.

The need to act is clear. We must secure a normal humanitarian situation. Let us do our bit. Let us adopt the resolution and follow it up. We must also return to this issue in the next part-session.

Current Affairs Debate on the situation in Gaza

Mr JACOBSEN (Norway). – It worries me that Mr Lindblad could speak for 10 minutes on behalf of the Council of Europe about Palestine and Israel without mentioning the word “occupation”, because that is what this issue is all about. The UN has told the truth about that. However, I am glad that there are now such organisations in Israel as Peace Now, as well as the human rights organisation B’Tselem and many other organisations, which really work for peace and argue that Israel should go for peace.

Gaza is the world’s largest open-air prison, and bombing, killing and hurting people there is nothing but a war crime. Israel planned this attack for months, according to two Norwegian doctors in the Shifa hospital in Gaza. Those doctors had to work more as witnesses to the killing, because neither the international press nor humanitarian organisations were allowed access to Gaza. Those two doctors asked, “Where is the Red Cross? Where are the other humanitarian organisations? People are dying here. Thousands are injured. Who is addressing their basic needs?”

The Norwegian authorities have been in contact with Hamas since it won the election, and why not? We know, especially here in the Council of Europe, that a legal and monitored election should be respected, at least until the next election, when someone else has the chance to take power.

We all know that Israel needs peace and security. Facilitation is necessary so that the Israelis have someone to talk to on the Palestinian side, instead of imprisoning half the Palestinian politicians. There is no one to talk to. We know that Mr Barghouti and others could be national symbols for the Palestinians, so there are people if Israel really wants to talk to them. Let us go for the 1967 borders, put an end to the occupation, withdraw the settlements, and for God’s sake, stop the new settlements. Let us stop what is happening now in eastern Jerusalem, where people are getting kicked out of their houses. If we respect private property, why do we not stop that?

Thursday 29 January 2009 at 10 a.m.

The challenge on procedural grounds of the still unratified credentials of the parliamentary delegation of Albania

Mr KOX (Netherlands). – Challenging credentials is a very serious matter in this Assembly. I thank the rules committee and John Greenway for treating this serious matter seriously and for doing so at short notice. We should defend the rights of each parliament to nominate delegations to this Assembly; importantly, this Assembly is not entitled to tell parliaments what they should do. However, it is also important for us to defend the rights of members of the Assembly. It appears that there might be a contradiction in this case, but we had the rules committee to decide on that.

This thorough report concluded that in this case rules were not violated, and my group supports that conclusion. We also support the conclusion that there is some ambiguity in the rules relating to the Albanian Parliament, which could lead to a different interpretation of the rules. We are happy with the Monitoring Committee’s decision to send Jaakko Laakso and David Wilshire at short notice to Albania in their capacity as rapporteurs of the Monitoring Committee to investigate in greater detail what is going on there. That will help us to understand the situation in Albania and to prevent similar conflicts. As John Greenway said, it is not clear that this is specifically an Albanian issue; there could be ambiguous rules in other parliaments. I advise national delegations to look after the rules in their own parliaments so that we can prevent such conflicts. We support the rules committee’s conclusion; justice has been done in relation to the Albanian Parliament and Mr Biberaj. The Group of the Unified European Left supports this clear conclusion and Rapporteur Greenway’s proposal.

Debate under urgent procedure: the consequences of the global financial crisis

Mr ELZINGA (Netherlands). – We live in turbulent times. What were common assumptions not so long ago have changed almost overnight. The financial crisis that arrived with devastating force has been followed by a fully fledged economic crisis that deepens every day with alarming speed. We are presented with new statistics each week. Each time the message is graver still, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, European Union, governments, the European Central Bank, national central banks, the World Bank and the IMF – most recently yesterday – must adjust their prognoses downwards. Even the figures in the report under discussion today already seem optimistic, or not pessimistic enough.

We are now threatened by a social crisis. Poorer countries were already affected by the food crisis earlier this year and are now suffering the severe consequences of the worldwide economic recession. Many of the Council of Europe’s member states have fallen, or will fall, into a formal recession. The predictions for 2009 are worse than the results for the last two quarters of 2008. We read daily in our newspapers about yet another company which, in order to save profits, plans to sack thousands of workers, and in doing so deepens the crisis. Alternatively, we read every other day about a minister of labour somewhere who predicts mass unemployment in his or her country within a year or two.

After the billions spent on rescuing the financial sector, we must fear that there will no longer be public money to uphold the social security schemes, health sector, education and other important public investments. My comments today are not a great deal different from those I made during the enlarged debate on the OECD and world economy just a few months ago. The report under discussion, however, is different from the report that we discussed then. I compliment the rapporteur on that – and I mean compliment.

Mr Sasi has written a well-balanced report that is highly critical of the international financial architecture, the greed of bankers and their focus on short-term profits, unsound management practices in financial institutions and the lack of transparency in the financial sector. The report accuses public authorities of a failure of adequate supervision and a failure to protect citizens. The rapporteur calls on the Council of Europe’s member states to boost investment and stimulate aggregate demand, to create better rules for governing the financial markets, to develop effective supervision of financial regulation, and to prevent tax havens from escaping appropriate financial control.

The rapporteur promotes economic and ecological sustainability, solidarity among member states – and vis-à-vis the developing countries – and solidarity within our nations by calling upon our governments to safeguard our citizens’ social and economic rights. And here I was thinking that Mr Sasi was an advocate of deregulation and neo-liberal policies. I was clearly wrong. I pleaded for some of those measures in the OECD debate some months ago on behalf of the Group of the Unified European Left. If I had promoted them only a year ago, I would surely have been considered a radical, but now – at least according to our rapporteur – they are common sense. Of course, I am happy about that, and so is my party group. I am sure that many of the citizens of our member states will agree – the citizens of Iceland did. I congratulate the Icelandic people on getting rid of a government that messed up their country’s economy so terribly.

In any case, workers and their unions will agree because, based on more or less the same sentiments and goals expressed in this report, they are fighting a social and economic struggle outside this building. Yesterday, they struck in Greece, and both yesterday and today, they have been striking in Germany. Today, we witness a historic strike here in France. Le Figaro calls today Black Thursday but I hope you do not mind my calling it Red Thursday, since polls show that 70% of the French people support this strike.

I hope that after Mr Sasi has adopted our common sense, he will adopt our way of promoting it. This afternoon at 3 o’clock, after we adopt his report, I hope that he will join us in the social struggle outside and come to the Place de la Bourse where the French trade union federations will be joining a demonstration. I have here a beautiful red T-shirt from one of the protesting unions, and after this debate I will give it to Mr Sasi. If he prefers a shirt in another colour from one of the other unions, I am sure that he will be able to obtain one at the demonstration because, for the first time in 30 years, all unions – tous les syndicats! – have joined forces. Of course, that is the best strategy to safeguard the social and economic rights of workers and the unemployed.

Thursday 29 January 2009 at 3 p.m.

Private military and security firms and the erosion of the state monopoly on the use of force

Mr LECOQ (France) said that they were facing a challenge in defending the values for which the Council of Europe stood. They were faced with an expansion of mercenary forces. Mercenary forces were not just used by rogue states.

If the excesses of private security firms were not fought with conviction, they could threaten human rights. Such private companies had a huge turnover, and many of those operating in countries such as Iraq were of Anglo-American origin. There was pressure to legitimise their activities, but this would amount to nothing less than acceptance of the privatisation of violence and the devolution of force to profit-making companies. This would be the apogee of rampant liberalism. The logical conclusion of such a policy would be that only those who could afford to pay for protection would feel secure. The use of force always had a political dimension, but private firms did not have the competence to address the causes of violence; indeed they had no interest in doing so, since its continuation would lead to profit for them. Private firms were being used as a way of getting around public pressure to cut military spending and increase its transparency. Supporters of these firms claimed that there was a demand for their services from NGOs, but it ought to be the United Nations that provided security in such situations. It had even been suggested that mercenaries should be used for peacekeeping missions.

There was a need for monitoring and compulsory standards. If there was to be a convention governing such activities, it would have to be firmly worded and must insist that violence could not be marketised, and that the existence of agreed standards did not legitimate private warfare. Furthermore, any convention could not infringe existing legislation, but instead must strengthen it, advocating more scrutiny of these firms. Above all, prevention of conflict wherever possible must be the aim and international law must be upheld.

Attitude to memorials exposed to different historical interpretations in Council of Europe member states

Mr MACHADO (Portugal) said that they were not addressing a new question. Throughout history, various cultures had dealt with the past in different ways. People tried to rewrite history and this could lead to monuments being destroyed. Some monuments to Soviet soldiers had been removed, destroyed or replaced. This was a matter for each country to decide for itself but the debate was, none the less, important. Historical heritage needed to be maintained. Many of the important buildings we could see today would have been lost if previous eras had destroyed the buildings and monuments of the régimes that went before them.

In the Second World War, Soviet soldiers played a determining role in defeating fascism. That was something that had to be respected. The Assembly had heard that both Nazism and Soviet socialism were responsible for damaging events across Europe. Such historical revisionism was a serious matter. Communists were the first to suffer under the Nazi regime. The vital role of Soviet soldiers in fighting against the Nazi regime was being ignored by the claim that totalitarian Communism and Nazism were the same. The report went against democratic history.

Colleagues had claimed that the crimes of Nazism did not excuse the crimes of Communism. As a Communist himself, he wanted to point out that the defence of justice was a Communist ideal. It was important to remember that.

Friday 30 January 2009 at 10 a.m

Environmentally induced migration and displacement: a 21st century challenge

Mr LOTMAN (Estonia). – The report and the draft resolution before us are timely and well done, which means that the rapporteur and the staff have done their job well and deserve our highest esteem. On behalf of the Group of the Unified European Left – a group with its fair share of Greens – I would like to support the main findings of the document.

The report pays significant attention to the complicated terminological maze of this problem and, in part, rightly so. However, I shall not dwell on the terminology, as time is ticking. The resolution starts with the well-grounded statement that migration is one of the oldest strategies for dealing with an unfriendly environment. Indeed, we humans are certainly not the only species that can move out of its habitat if it becomes unsuitable, for example owing to climatic conditions changing or the depletion of food resources. However, it is we, the modern humans of the 21st century, who degrade the environment on such a scale that those who pay the price, be they other humans or other species, can be in quite different parts of the world from those who are guilty of the aforementioned degradation. This is especially clear in the case of climate change. The activities that cause climate change are found largely in Europe, North America and China, but those who suffer from a large proportion of the consequences live in Africa, Oceania, the Arctic and Tibet.

In the case of Africa, the victims are already on the move. The flight from Africa has multiple causes, of course, ranging from war and tyranny to drought and famine, only some of which are attributable to global warming or other man-made ecological calamities. It must be noted, however, that natural phenomena such as droughts, or their opposite, floods, are predicted to become more common and much more severe – to some extent, this has already been observed – owing to man-made climate change. These, in turn, lead to conflicts over dwindling resources, wars and, consequently, refugees. Therefore, the indirect impact of our oil addiction is much bigger than superficial observation would suggest.

In the case of African refugees, the problems that we have created are coming home to roost. Thus, not only is swift action our moral duty; it is in our best self-interest. Of course we must manage these disaster-driven population flows, so as to avoid further human suffering and to make it possible for these people to lead dignified lives. However, it is much more important to do our very best to reduce our climate impact and our ecological footprint in general. The time to act is now.