Situation of Human Rights in the Temporarily Occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, Ukraine

A/RES/76/179View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 74cHuman rights situations and reports of special rapporteurs and representatives, published in 2021.

What other versions does this mandate have?

2 versions · 2022–2023

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/77/229

2023A/RES/77/229Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, UkraineLatestCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/179Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 topics

Crimea (Ukraine)Human Rights Human Rights Monitoring Human Rights Violations Russian Federation Sevastopol (Ukraine)Ukraine

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

2 reports of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2022.

2022A/77/220Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine report of the Secretary-General
2022A/HRC/50/65Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

51 operative paragraphs

Deplores the failure of the Russian Federation to comply with the repeated requests and demands of the General Assembly, as well as with the order of the International Court of Justice of 19 April 2017 on provisional measures in the case concerning the Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Ukraine v. Russian Federation);

Strongly condemns the continuing and total disregard by the Russian Federation for its obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and international law regarding its legal responsibility for the occupied territory, including the responsibility to respect Ukrainian law and the rights of all civilians;

Condemns all attempts by the Russian Federation to legitimize or normalize its attempted annexation of Crimea, including the automatic imposition of Russian citizenship, illegal election campaigns and voting, population census, forcible change of the demographic structure of the population of Crimea and suppression of national identity;

Also condemns violations, abuses, measures and practices of discrimination against the residents of the temporarily occupied Crimea, including Crimean Tatars, as well as Ukrainians and persons belonging to other ethnic and religious groups, by the Russian occupation authorities;

Further condemns the unlawful imposition of laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Crimea by the Russian Federation, and demands that the Russian Federation respect obligations under international law with regard to respecting the laws in force in Crimea prior to occupation;

Urges the Russian Federation:

To uphold all of its obligations under applicable international law as an occupying Power;

To fully and immediately comply with the order of the International Court of Justice of 19 April 2017;

To take all measures necessary to bring an immediate end to all violations and abuses against residents of Crimea, in particular reported discriminatory measures and practices, arbitrary detentions and arrests, enforced disappearances, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, including to compel apprehended persons to self-incriminate or “cooperate” with law enforcement, ensure fair trial, revoke all discriminatory legislation and hold accountable those responsible for those violations and abuses by ensuring the independent, impartial and effective investigation of all allegations;

To refrain from arresting or prosecuting Crimean residents for non-criminal acts committed or opinions expressed, including in social media comments or posts, before the occupation, and release all Crimean residents who have been arrested or imprisoned for such acts;

To respect the laws in force in Ukraine, repeal laws imposed in Crimea by the Russian Federation that allow for forced evictions and the confiscation of private property, including land in Crimea, in violation of applicable international law, and respect the property rights of all former owners affected by previous confiscations;

To immediately release and allow the return to Ukraine, without preconditions, of Ukrainian citizens who were unlawfully detained and judged without regard for the requirements of international law, as well as those transferred or deported across internationally recognized borders from Crimea to the Russian Federation;

To disclose the number and identity of individuals deported from Crimea to the Russian Federation to serve criminal sentences and take immediate action to allow the voluntary return of such individuals to Crimea;

To end the practice of placing detainees in solitary confinement cells as a method of intimidation;

To monitor and accommodate the medical needs of all Ukrainian citizens unlawfully detained for the exercise of their human rights and fundamental freedoms, including political prisoners, in Crimea and the Russian Federation and allow the monitoring of those detainees’ state of health and conditions of detention by independent international monitors and physicians from reputable international health organizations, including the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and investigate effectively all deaths in detention;

To uphold the rights, in accordance with international law and until their release, of Ukrainian prisoners and detainees in Crimea and in the Russian Federation, including those on hunger strike, and encourages it to respect the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) and the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules);

To provide Ukrainian consular officials with information on Ukrainian citizens detained in the Russian Federation, ensure freedom of consular communication with, and consular access to, detained Ukrainian citizens, in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the Russian Federation is a party, and allow Ukrainian officials, including the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit all Ukrainian citizens, including political prisoners in Crimea and the Russian Federation;

To address the issue of impunity and ensure that those found to be responsible for violations and abuses are held accountable before an independent judiciary;

To create and maintain a safe and enabling environment for journalists and media workers and citizen journalists, human rights defenders and defence lawyers to perform their work independently and without undue interference in Crimea, including by refraining from travel bans, deportations, arbitrary arrests, detention and prosecution, and other restrictions on the enjoyment of their rights;

To respect freedom of opinion and expression, which includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, enable a safe environment for independent media pluralism and ensure a safe and enabling environment for civil society organizations;

To respect freedom of opinion, association and peaceful assembly and freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief, without discrimination on any grounds, and ensure unimpeded access, without any undue restrictions, to places of worship as well as gatherings for prayer and other religious practices;

To restore enjoyment of the rights of all individuals, without any discrimination based on origin or religion or belief, revoke the decisions that banned cultural and religious institutions, non-governmental organizations, human rights organizations and media outlets and restore enjoyment of the rights of individuals belonging to ethnic communities in Crimea, in particular Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, including that to engage in cultural gatherings;

To respect the right to be free from arbitrary or unlawful interference with a person’s privacy, family, home or correspondence;

To ensure that the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of association can be exercised by all Crimean residents in any form, including single-person pickets, without any restrictions other than those permissible under international law, including international human rights law, and without discrimination on any grounds, and end the practices of abusing requirements of prior authorization for peaceful assemblies and issuing warnings or threats to potential participants in those assemblies;

To refrain from criminalizing the rights to hold opinions without interference and to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly and quash all penalties imposed on Crimean residents for expressing dissenting views, including regarding the status of Crimea;

To ensure the availability of education in the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages;

To respect the rights of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, revoke immediately the decision declaring the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People an extremist organization and banning its activities, repeal the decision banning leaders of the Mejlis from entering Crimea, repeal the sentences in absentia against Crimean Tatars and their leaders and immediately release those arbitrarily detained, including the leaders of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, and refrain from maintaining or imposing limitations on the ability of the Crimean Tatar community to conserve its representative institutions;

To end the practice of compelling Crimean residents to serve in the armed or auxiliary forces of the Russian Federation, including through pressure or propaganda, and in particular ensure that Crimean residents are not compelled to participate in military operations of the Russian Federation and cease using the education system for the propaganda of service in the armed or auxiliary forces of the Russian Federation among children;

To end also the practice of criminal prosecution of inhabitants of Crimea who resist conscription into the armed or auxiliary forces of the Russian Federation;

To end the practices of deporting Ukrainian citizens from Crimea for not taking Russian citizenship, including on the basis of the application of Russian Federation migration and correctional legislation, and of discriminating against Crimean residents for not possessing identity documents issued by the Russian Federation and for the use of Ukrainian identity documents, stop transferring its own civilian population to Crimea and end the practice of encouraging such transfers;

To disclose to Ukraine full information on children who are Ukrainian citizens left without parental care in Crimea since the beginning of the occupation of the peninsula, including on those children who were subsequently adopted or transferred to foster families outside of Crimea, in order to ensure that Ukraine is able to provide protection and care to those children;

To cooperate fully and immediately with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including its Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, which must have safe, secure and unhindered access to the entire territory of Ukraine, including the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, and the Council of Europe on the situation of human rights in Crimea;

To create the conditions, as well as provide the means, to allow for the voluntary, safe, dignified and unhindered return to their homes of all internally displaced persons and refugees affected by the temporary occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation;

To provide, on a continuous basis, sufficiently detailed information on the spread of COVID-19 in Crimea and on measures that it undertakes to ensure and maintain public health and hygiene in Crimea, and to assist the population of these territories in coping with the pandemic;

To uphold its responsibility, as the occupying Power, on ensuring adequate living conditions in Crimea, including by ensuring the fair distribution of freshwater resources for the civilian population;

To ensure that safe drinking water is enjoyed by all residents of Crimea without discrimination and they are provided with access to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use;

To stop the policy of forcibly changing the demographic composition of the population and take the necessary measures aimed at limiting the free migration of citizens of the Russian Federation to the occupied territory;

To ensure compliance with its obligations under international law, including humanitarian law and the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, adopted at The Hague on 14 May 1954, on the preservation of monuments of the cultural heritage of Ukraine in Crimea, in particular the monument “The ancient city of Chersonese and its Chora”, to prevent and stop reported illegal archaeological excavations on the territory of the Crimean peninsula and the illicit transfer of cultural property of Ukraine outside the occupied territory;

Also urges the Russian Federation to respect the right to freedom of religion or belief and guarantee its enjoyment by all residents of Crimea, and to lift discriminatory regulatory barriers prohibiting or limiting the activities of religious groups in Crimea, including, but not limited to, parishioners of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Muslim Crimean-Tatars and Jehovah’s Witnesses;

Calls upon the Russian Federation to address the substantive concerns and all recommendations highlighted in the reports of the Secretary-General and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, as well as previous relevant recommendations from reports on the situation of human rights in Ukraine by the Office of the High Commissioner based on the work of the United Nations human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine established to prevent further deterioration of human rights in Crimea;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to seek ways and means, including through consultations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and relevant regional organizations, to ensure safe and unfettered access to Crimea by established regional and international human rights monitoring mechanisms, in particular the human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, to enable them to carry out their mandate;

Urges the Russian Federation to ensure the proper and unimpeded access of international human rights monitoring missions and human rights non-governmental organizations to Crimea, including all places where persons may be deprived of their liberty, recognizing that the international presence and monitoring of compliance with international human rights law and international humanitarian law in Crimea are of paramount importance in preventing further deterioration of the situation;

Supports the efforts of Ukraine to maintain economic, financial, political, social, informational, cultural and other ties with its citizens in Crimea in order to facilitate their access to democratic processes, economic opportunities and objective information;

Calls upon all international organizations and specialized agencies of the United Nations system, when referring to Crimea in their official documents, communications, publications, information and reports, including with regard to statistical data of the Russian Federation or provided by the Russian Federation, as well as those placed or used on official United Nations Internet resources and platforms, to refer to “the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Ukraine, temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation”, and to refer to bodies of the Russian Federation and their representatives in Crimea as “occupation authorities of the Russian Federation”, and encourages all States and other international organizations to do the same;

Calls upon the international community to continue to support the work of the United Nations to ensure respect for international human rights law and international humanitarian law in Crimea;

Calls upon Member States to support human rights defenders in Crimea and to continue advocacy for the respect of human rights, including by condemning, at bilateral and multilateral forums, human rights violations and abuses committed in Crimea;

Also calls upon Member States to engage constructively in concerted efforts, including within international frameworks and the International Crimea Platform, aimed at improving the human rights situation in the occupied peninsula, as well as to continue to use all diplomatic means to press and urge the Russian Federation to comply with its obligations under international human rights law and as an occupying Power under international humanitarian law and to grant unimpeded access to Crimea for established regional and international human rights monitoring mechanisms, in particular the human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine;

Requests the Secretary-General to remain actively seized of the matter and to take all steps necessary, including within the Secretariat, to ensure the full and effective coordination of all United Nations bodies with regard to the implementation of the present resolution;

Also requests the Secretary-General to continue to provide his good offices and pursue his discussions relating to Crimea, involving all relevant stakeholders and including the concerns addressed in the present resolution;

Further requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session on the progress made in the implementation of all provisions of the present resolution, including options and recommendations to improve its implementation, and to submit for consideration an interim report to the Human Rights Council at its fiftieth session, to be followed by an interactive dialogue, in accordance with Council resolution 47/22 of 13 July 2021;

Decides to continue its consideration of the matter at its seventy-seventh session under the item entitled “Promotion and protection of human rights”.

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Who created this mandate?

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