Experts of the Ministry of Justice of Russia are Interested in the CSTO PA’s Model Lawmaking Experience

On March 14, the Ministry of Justice of Russia hosted a conference titled Use of Force in the International Legal Dimension and Response Measures in the Face of New Challenges and Threats.

The conference participants discussed topical issues of international legal regulation of the use of force and the grounds, limits and procedures for its use by a modern legal state.

Sergei Pospelov, Executive Secretary of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, focused on the regulatory aspect of countering the hybrid use of force. He noted that the parliamentarians of the Collective Security Treaty Organization are taking all possible measures to counter various security threats, identify them and respond to what is happening with legislators’ methods. Increased attention is paid to the fight against terrorism and other violent extremism.

“Hybrid warfare is not a new and inevitable problem that is uniquely specific to the modern strategic environment of international security cooperation. But it has become the dominant one in the modern world, and the theoretical apologists of the West describe it as a ‘synchronized and combined’ use of multiple tools of power specially selected to obtain mutually reinforcing effects in relation to specific vulnerabilities of the enemy in the entire spectrum of social processes,” Mr Pospelov emphasized.

The CSTO PA Executive Secretary also noted the importance of the contribution of the parliamentary dimension to improving the CSTO crisis response mechanism.

“A number of model acts have been adopted, including the law On Peacekeeping Activities and Peacekeeping Forces and several recommendations for improving and unifying the approaches of states to determining the status of contingents, military duty and military service, the status of military personnel and categories of civil servants equated to them in their participation in the peacekeeping contingents, their equipment, as well as on blocking the channels of penetration of international terrorism into the territory of the Member States,” Sergei Pospelov said.

As you may recall, the CSTO model legislative anti-terrorist base currently consists of 10 acts directly aimed at countering terrorism and extremism. Various aspects of more than 20 other model acts contribute to the resolution of this important task. Particular attention is paid to the development of model acts in the area of combating Nazism and protecting historical memory, in the field of protecting the electoral sovereignty of the CSTO Member States and biosecurity.

“In the medium term, the relevance of further addressing legal aspects of security concerning the use of artificial intelligence, non-proliferation of WMD, including outer space, will remain relevant. In addition to lawmaking activities, we regularly conduct parliamentary monitoring of the military and political situation in the Organization’s collective security regions,” Mr Pospelov said.

Conference speakers included representatives of international organizations, public authorities and the expert community. Russia’s Ministry of Justice will consider all proposals voiced by the speakers.