Comment by Ambassador K.K. Dolgov, Russian MFA Representative on Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, on publishing of Human Rights and Democracy Report in 2011 by the UK Foreign Office

Moscow has closely studied the Human Rights and Democracy Report in 2011 published by the UK Foreign Office. This document traditionally attempts to fulfil an ambitious task "to assess" the level of development of democracy in different states of the world. At the same time the authors again preferred to ignore the established principle of international life: not a single state can take the role of supreme arbiter in the human rights and democracy which, in compliance with international agreements, are subjects of "direct and legal" interest of all states.

This mentioned conceptual flaw is clearly shown, in particular, in the Section for Russia. We have to state that, as it was before, the UK's approach to assess the real state of affairs in human rights in Russia is not impartial and unbiased because the information was not taken from reliable sources. Unfortunately, this time the authors obviously deliberately ignored serious democratic reforms which are successfully carried out in Russia. It also does not contribute to the impartiality of the Report.

We are ready to continue using existing channels of bilateral dialogue with the UK and corresponding multilateral platforms to discuss per se issues related to the human rights in both Russia and the UK. This should be equitable, constructive and with mutual respect talk, free from stereotypes of the time of confrontation and political moralizations.

By the way, we take into account that the British authorities should conscientiously fulfil the recommendations for London made by the UN Council on Human Rights (CHR) and by other international structures including those during the UK 2nd cycle of Universal Periodic Review as part of CHR working group session on 24 May this year.

5 May 2012