Check against delivery

Dear President Zelenskyy,

Excellencies,

Dear friends,

We have all condemned this occupation for over a decade. What is needed now is accountability. And I want to be very concrete about what we have now, and what that means.

The path to accountability already exists. The Council of Europe – with its member states and partners around the world – has built it, piece by piece.

On Crimea, accountability has a legal foundation, and there is already a verdict. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled, not in general terms, but specifically on Crimea, and Russia is bound by this ruling.

The Court found Russia responsible, as the occupying power, for a pattern of violations in Crimea: arbitrary detention; enforced disappearances; suppression of Crimean Tatar institutions and media; forced imposition of Russian citizenship; and the transfer of children. This is not our characterization. This is a binding judgment.

My two points now are:

First, this ruling will remain. It will not disappear. It is based on international law.

Second, this ruling obliges Russia to comply, even if we see that the execution takes time. It is then a question about enforcement. It is no longer a question about the ruling.

Implementation is needed now, not another declaration. A judgement that sits on a shelf changes nothing. It starts with releasing those unlawfully and arbitrarily detained. It means bringing Ukraine’s children home. It means enforcing what the Court has already decided.

My third point is about accountability with the member states of the Council of Europe and with partners around the world.

We have, in addition to what I have mentioned, the Register of Damage. It is operational, recording losses for future reparation. We have the International Claims Commission, which will turn those records into enforceable compensation. And we have the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression, which will prosecute the crime that made all the others possible.

These elements are not proposals. They are mechanisms, open today for every state that shares these principles to join, ratify, and fund.

My very last point is that no peace process can go around this. No negotiation can trade away the rights of the people of Crimea and the occupied territories in exchange for a ceasefire.

A peace that ignores them will not hold. Only a peace built on law and on justice will.

Thank you.