Human Rights Committee finds Russia’s naturalisation of Ukrainian citizens in Crimea a human rights violation, imposition of Russian law illegal

The UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) has delivered a landmark decision with far-reaching implications for Russia’s use of forced naturalisation in Crimea and other occupied territories.

In Bratsylo and others v Russia, the HRC found that the imposition of Russian law in Crimea, to apply retroactively, was unlawful, and resulted in the arbitrary detention of the three complainants; that the Russian Federation’s forced naturalisation program violated their civil and political rights; and that the complainants were subject to discrimination in respect of the imposition of Russian citizenship and their subsequent transfer to prisons within Russia.

The HRC’s decision in the case – co-litigated by EHRAC and our partner lawyers Serghiy Zayets and Natalia Ryzhenko, and Roman Martynovsky of the Ukrainian NGO Regional Centre for Human Rights (RCHR) – is the first decision from an international human rights body to address individual claims of human rights violations resulting from Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. It is groundbreaking in three ways. It is:

• the first time the HRC has interpreted and applied the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) with reference to international humanitarian law (IHL)
• the first time it has found that the ICCPR protects against the forced imposition of foreign citizenship
• the first international decision finding forced naturalisation discriminatory on grounds of national origin.
• the first time an international human rights tribunal has found discrimination on the grounds of ‘protected persons’ status under Geneva Convention IV

Background

In February 2014, the Russian Federation invaded the Crimean peninsular, part of Ukraine. On 18 March, it annexed the region, imposing Russian law. Ukrainians were given one month to complete a complex process if they wished to refuse Russian citizenship. Prisoners were not given the option to refuse Russian citizenship.

On the date that Russian law was imposed, the three complainants were in detention in Crimea, having been charged and/or convicted under Ukrainian law. Following the imposition of Russian law, Valery Golovko and Sergey Konyukhov saw their convictions ‘reclassified’ under Russian criminal law. The charge Roman Bratsylo was facing was swapped to an ‘analogous’ Russian charge.

The three men were all subsequently transferred from Crimea to detention facilities in Rostov, Russia, where they remained despite their requests to be transferred back to Ukraine.

The HRC’s decision

The HRC found violations of the complainants’ rights under Articles 9, 12, 15, 17 (save for RB who did not argue this) and 26 of the ICCPR.

‘This decision is utterly ground-breaking in its recognition of the abusiveness of the strategy of forced naturalisation not only as a violation of the Convention, but constituting racial discrimination on the basis of national origin. No other international body has made such a far reaching finding with respect to the regime in Crimea.’

Sergiy Zayets, lawyer.

The HRC’s decision – a legal analysis

The decision in this case is groundbreaking in a number of ways.

In a legal first, the HRC interpreted and applied the ICCPR in light of international humanitarian law (IHL), and delivered a progressive analysis of the relationship between these two separate bodies of law. Confirming that the ICCPR applies in times of armed conflict, the HRC underlined that the Covenant and IHL are ‘complementary, not mutually exclusive’, and specifically relied on Geneva Convention IV (GCIV) concerning the protection of civilians in armed conflict. This interpretation and application of the ICCPR is far reaching.

The HRC held that the retroactive application of Russian criminal law (prohibited under Article 15 ICCPR and Articles 65 and 67 GCIV, relating to the legal regime under occupation) to crimes that had been committed by the authors under Ukrainian law, was unlawful and rendered their detention ‘arbitrary’, in breach of their rights under Articles 9 and 15 ICCPR.

Secondly, as part of the right to privacy the HRC recognised the right to be protected against ‘forceful imposition of a foreign nationality’. The HRC identified that a person’s nationality constitutes an important component of one’s identity, and that this ‘includes protection against forceful imposition of a foreign nationality’. The HRC found that the forced Russian naturalisation of Golovko and Konyukhov constituted an arbitrary interference with their rights under Article 17.

This is the first time the HRC has found that the ICCPR protects against the forced imposition of foreign citizenship, and the first finding (to date) by an international legal body that Russia’s citizenship regime in Crimea constituted a human rights abuse.

Thirdly, and significantly, the HRC found that the authors were discriminated against on the grounds of their ‘national origin’ in relation to the unlawful imposition of forced Russian citizenship and their status as ‘protected persons’ under GCIV in relation to their unlawful transfer to the Russian Federation to serve their prison sentence, in breach of Article 26 ICCPR. It is unprecedented for any international human rights body to recognise protected civilian status in conflict under IHL as a ground of discrimination.

The HRC’s finding is groundbreaking in its recognition of the discriminatory nature of Russia’s citizenship regime in Crimea. No other international tribunal has established this. In February 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) (Ukraine v Russian Federation) declined to hold that the forced imposition of Russian citizenship in Crimea constituted discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin.

Remedies

The HRC made a number of recommendations for Russia to remedy the violations established, including: providing the authors with adequate compensation; taking measures to ‘eliminate consequences of the imposition of Russian citizenship’ for Golovko and Konyukhov; and ensuring that the authors have ‘a possibility to return to their own country’.

To address the wider impact of the forced naturalization and transfer of prisoners from Crimea to the territory of the Russian Federation, the HRC called on Russia to ‘take steps to avoid similar violations in the future, including reviewing its legislation on citizenship and retroactive application of criminal law as it is applied to the territory of Crimea to ensure that it is in compliance with the Covenant.’