The Former Secretary General of the Council of Europe Confronting Russia’s Annexation of the Crimea and Turkey’s State of Emergency
Abstract This article investigates the influence of the former Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE), Thorbjørn Jagland, on the responses of other CoE bodies to the systemic breaches of the core principles of other CoE bodies to the systemic breaches of the core principles of the CoE in the context of two critical events: Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and Turkey’s state of emergency that followed the attempted coup in 2016. Specifically, it examines the influence of the Secretary General’s policy preferences on the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE and the European Court of Human Rights. The article argues that Jagland’s policy preferences in the context of these two events prioritised political expediency to the detriment of the CoE’s normative mission. The article finds that the Secretary General played a crucial role in facilitating the reversal of the sanctions imposed by the Assembly against Russia and the postponement of the processing of Turkey’s post-coup cases by the Court.