Moskovskiye Novosti
Georgia takes Russia to court over 2008 war
The European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) held a public hearing Thursday to decide if there are sufficient grounds to consider Georgia’s claims regarding the deployment of Russian troops and Russia-controlled separatists in the country in 2008. This is Georgia’s third lawsuit against Russia. If the court’s decision fails to please Tbilisi, it will continue its legal battle against Russia.
Georgia first appealed to the ECHR on August 11, 2008, a day before the war in South Ossetia ended, to force Russia to withdraw. But ECHR President Jean Paul Costa only urged those involved to stop the conflict. “It was unclear then and it is unclear now who was right and who was wrong,” a court source told MN.
Georgia provided additional documents in September 2009 and March 2010, insisting that Russia violated the right to life, freedom, personal inviolability, private property and freedom of movement, and that it used torture. Simultaneously, 3,300 Ossetians filed the same complaints against Georgia. The court accepted half as being legitimate.
“The Georgian Government allege that the Russian Federation allowed, or caused to develop, an administrative practice through indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks against civilians and their property in the two autonomous regions of Georgia – Abkhazia and South Ossetia – by the Russian military forces and the separatist forces under their control,” the court said in a press release.
Georgia’s Justice Ministry said they have supplied proof of Russia’s gross and systematic violations of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Russia maintains that Georgia’s allegations “are ill-founded, unjustified and not confirmed by admissible evidence.” Russia said its armed forces “did not launch attacks but defended the civilian population of South Ossetia and Abkhazia against Georgian offensives.”
Both Russia and Georgia have investigated the August 2008 conflict but cannot prove which state fired the first shot. Russia says it moved in after Georgia started shelling the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. Georgia claims they were merely responding to Ossetian aggression.
In August 2008, Georgia filed a lawsuit against Russia with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, claiming that Russia “encouraged ethnic cleansing campaigns against Georgians by the separatist forces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by sending in weapons and mercenaries and directly deploying Russian troops.” The court rejected the claim on the grounds that hope remains that Georgia and Russia can resolve the dispute.
Georgian human rights activist Eka Beselia told MN that Georgia’s complaints to international courts “rely on politics and are short of legal arguments.” She said the ECHR will likely reject Georgia’s complaint, just as the ICC did.
Georgia has two goals, said Mikhail Machavariani, first deputy speaker of the Georgian parliament. “We want, to keep public attention focused on the situation in Georgia after the war, and to call Russia to account for the occupation,” he said. “No matter what the ECHR decides on Thursday, we will continue to use international law to make our case.”
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russia’s push north gives Northern Sea Route a second lease of life
“We are planning to turn the Northern Sea Route into a key commercial route of global significance,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk on Thursday. “The course from the Asia-Pacific region to Europe through the Arctic is almost a third shorter than the traditional southern route.” Independent experts agree on the importance of its development but doubt that sufficient funding will be made available for the implementation of such a giant project.
The Northern Sea Route is to become a route of global importance and significance, Vladimir Putin said in Arkhangelsk on Thursday. He said that Russia envisages the Northern Sea Route as an international transport artery capable of ‘competing with traditional sea routes in cost of services, safety and quality.”
“The shortest route between the biggest markets of Europe and the Asia-Pacific region lies through the Arctic. It is almost one-third shorter than the traditional southern route and presents an excellent opportunity to reduce shipping costs. States and private companies will gain tangible economic benefits from using it,” Vladimir Putin told the Arctic forum, which was organized by the Russian Geographic Society (RGS).
“The Northern Sea Route cuts the sea distance between Europe and Asia by 34%, reducing travel time by almost two weeks.” Also, “it is pirate-free,” Artur Chilingarov, RGO vice-president and presidential envoy for Arctic and Antarctic cooperation, told RIA Novosti. The volume of traffic fell from 6.7 million tons in 1987 to practically zero and did not start to recover until 2000, rising to three million tons by 2010.
The authorities, however, plan to remedy the situation.
There are plans to see this rise at least to 30 million tons by 2020, and possibly to 75 million, explained Deputy Regional Development Minister Alexander Viktorov. “This will make it possible to transform maritime transportation in the Arctic into a profitable source of earnings, only second to oil.” According to the official, the Regional Development Ministry has worked out a development strategy for the Arctic, with the Northern Sea Route given pride of place.
However, environmentalists warn that all further industrial development of the Arctic should be conducted with the utmost care. They stress that, in climate terms, this is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions. “One of the key signs of this over the past decades has been the shrinking of its ice cover,” said the Russian branch of the WWF in a press release ahead of the forum.
Independent experts believe there is little chance of seeing quick returns from Arctic development. But this is no reason to give it up in a strategic perspective. “As regards the project to revive the Northern Sea Route, everything will depend on traffic volumes: it will prove profitable if it involves a large enough scale,” believes Dmitry Alexandrov, head of investment analysis at the Univer investment company. “But one should not look for early results.”
Kommersant
Russian ruble confirms gloomy prospects for 2013
The Russian ruble weakened to 32 rubles/$ along with an accelerated decline of international reserves and capital outflow, nearing the Economic Development Ministry’s most pessimistic scenario for 2012-2014.
The ruble is highly unlikely to remain strong after 2013, a ministry report said on Thursday, downgrading the national currency’s exchange rate forecast to 36-39/$.
Russia’s international reserves fell 1.3% to $532 billion last week, also on continued capital outflow, which Goldman Sachs estimated at $600 million in the first week of September and $1.3 billion in the second week. Continuing instability on the financial markets may see Russia’s capital outflow rise to $5-7 billion by the end of September, analysts say.
At the same time, they do not see any key drivers for “capital flight” from Russia. The ruble’s weakening is driven by the European liquidity deficit rather than by falling oil prices: despite a recent drop in Brent quotations, it is still above $105 per barrel. Europe’s liquidity problems were triggered on Thursday by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s debt maturity extension program, dubbed “operation twist,” and a crisis of confidence in Europe’s interbank market.
Last May’s “mini-crisis” has resolved into a new oil price rise, which enabled Russia to balance its 2011 budget and strengthened the floating ruble. The Central Bank has refrained from intervening in recent weeks, calmly watching significant falls on the stock market with short-term interbank interest rates steady at the moderate level of 5%. The regulator views the current market as a good model of its successful “inflation targeting” and “floating ruble rate” policies, maintaining that a falling ruble is not a catastrophe.
Despite the ruble’s 10% nominal depreciation, this trend is unlikely to cause a spike in inflation in the short or medium term. The recent argument between the Central Bank’s First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev and Deputy Economics Minister Andrei Klepach was rendered irrelevant by the falling ruble. Klepach told a forum in Sochi that the ruble rate was 10% overestimated, but rescinded his estimates after sharp criticism from the regulator.
Whatever the reasons for his change of heart, the markets seem to be fulfilling his initial forecast, rather than his subsequent version.
The ministry’s macroeconomic forecast for 2012-2014 gives a clear description of how the ruble could fall to a low of 39 rubles/$. The import-oriented domestic demand and stable exports will halve Russia’s trade balance surplus in 2013, neutralizing the current account surplus, the ministry said. A stress scenario of oil falling to $60-$65 per barrel would mean the ruble falling to 38-39/$.
The ministry also predicts an import slowdown in 2013 as the ruble’s effective value declines 1.9%. Then there is the issue of the continuing crisis on the EU and U.S. markets, which could force an adjustment to this predicted stability as early as September-October 2011. There is no guarantee that we will see a repeat of the May recovery.
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