Human Rights and the Environment

Case Study: Protecting Environmental Reporters

Country: Russia

Region: Europe

Issues: Toxics, Pollution, Litigation, Nuclear

Recent court activities in St. Petersburg and Vladivostok, Russia demonstrate the importance of safeguarding internationally-recognized criminal due process rights and civil liberties for individuals whose environmental work results in the availability of information to concerned citizens and groups. Such availability of information may mobilize people to fight environmental threats and call for the enforcement of environmental laws.

On December 29, 1999, the St. Petersburg City Court acquitted Aleksandr Nikitin of 1995 charges of espionage and disclosure of state secrets brought because of his research about and co-authorship of a chapter for an environmental report on Russian nuclear submarine accidents. The resulting material highlighted a threat to the environment and human health that the Russian government may have failed to adequately address. In March 2000, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the trial court's acquittal. No longer under house arrest but denied permission to travel abroad since the December decision, Nikitin declared that he intended to continue fighting against unsafe nuclear waste practices in Russia which harm both the environment and human health.[1]

In Vladivostok, a similar case proceeded against Grigory Pasko, a navy captain and reporter for the Russian Pacific Fleet's newspaper. During his years as a reporter, Pasko demonstrated how Russia's decaying nuclear submarine fleet threatened both the environment and the health of communities living near illicit nuclear waste sites. Alleging that Pasko's work constituted a threat to national security, military prosecutors tried Pasko on charges similar to those brought against Nikitin. In July 1999, the military court in Vladivostok finally released Pasko, finding that the prosecution lacked evidence to support the espionage charges against him and had engaged in irregular practices during the investigation and gathering of evidence. The court, however, declined to acquit Pasko and instead declared him guilty of "abuse of office." The court sentenced Pasko to three years in prison, then relieved him of the obligation to serve the sentence under the provisions of a recently adopted amnesty law for prisoners and detainees. Pasko's supporters continue to demand a full acquittal.[2]

The Special Rapporteur on Toxics mentioned the Pasko case in her report to the fifty-sixth session of the Commission on Human Rights. The UN Commission on Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention brought the case to the attention of the Special Rapporteur.[3]

[1] See Bellona Foundation, Supreme Victory! Apr. 17, 2000, at http://www.bellona.no/imaker?id=16538⊂=1 (last visited Dec. 19, 2001).

[2] See Amnesty International, All Charges Should be Dropped Against Freed Prisoner of Conscience Grigory Pasko, Jul. 20, 1999, at http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/EUR460221999 (last visited Dec. 19, 2001).

[3] See Adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products and wastes on the enjoyment of human rights, Report by the Special Rapporteur on Toxic Waste, U.N. Hum. Rts. Comm., at 14-15, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/2000/50 (2000).

Last Updated: 09/09/05