Complaints to the UN and ECHR after Russia left the Council of Europe
Whom to write to now
- Write to Prison Lawyer online
- Write to First Department abroad · foreign agent
- Write to Solidarity Zone in Russia and abroad · foreign agent
Draft: not yet checked by a lawyer
The guides below are drafts: a lawyer has not reviewed them yet. This is not legal advice.Draft What human rights defenders advise
Complaints to the UN and ECHR after Russia left the Council of Europe
- The ECHR is almost no longer an option against Russia. Formally it covers only violations before 16 September 2022, but on 3 September 2026 it struck out all 879 remaining complaints not related to the war (Lebedeva and 878 others). The main route now is the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee Against Torture and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
- For violations after 16 September 2022 there's the UN Human Rights Committee: you must go through four instances (first, appeal, two cassations), the filing deadline is 5 years, and registration takes about a year.
- In February 2026 the Supreme Court called the UN Committee's interim measures non-binding, but not its final decisions. Human rights groups say complaints are still worth filing.
- It's best to prepare with a lawyer from the start: violations must be raised in Russian courts first, or the UN may not consider them.
- Where to turn: Memorial (designated 'extremist' in Russia; contact it from a phone other than one that could be seized), the Institute for Law and Public Policy (foreign agent), First Department (foreign agent).
Ready-made templates and tools
- EHRAC briefing note: international avenues for complaints against Russia after its expulsion from the Council of Europe · EHRAC (Лондон) · link checked 26 September 2026
- How to collect documents for a UN Human Rights Committee complaint (in Russian) · OVD-Info (foreign agent, extremist) · link checked 26 September 2026
Designations of organisations in this guide: Memorial Human Rights Defence Centre (extremist, on Rosfinmonitoring list); Memorial Political Prisoners Support (extremist, on Rosfinmonitoring list). Contacting them carries a risk: do not write from a phone that may be seized, and do not repost their materials.
current as of 26 September 2026. More: OVD-Info: the ECHR now and the alternatives (extremist); First Department: the Supreme Court and UN Committee decisions (foreign agent)