Holding on to Legalism

Abstract

Russian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) increasingly pursue domestic change by litigating before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The Russian government aims to decrease the amount of these applications and curtail the activities of these NGOs. In Russia, where legalism is often performed but sparsely delivered, NGOs engage into advocacy to supplement their international litigation. Advocating for domestic policy changes has, however, become potentially dangerous for NGOs under new curtailing legislation. Through interviews with Russian human rights practitioners, this article analyzes how two NGOs – the Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial and the Committee against Torture – work in between their belief that law can effect into change and the necessity to supplement their litigation with other strategies. In particular, it analyzes the interactions between the state and the NGOs by examining, first, how NGOs mobilize claims before the Court as leverage in disputes, and second, how a restrictive environment affects the NGOs’ litigation.