In the Year of Memory and Glory and in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War, we plan to begin introducing CSTO PA model legislative acts, starting with a set of model legislative acts aimed at preventing the revival of Nazism

In the year of the 75th anniversary of the Victory over Nazism in the Second World War, while gratefully paying tribute to the heroic deeds of veterans and home front workers, we have to regretfully note that today in the post-Soviet space there still are attempts to revive the Nazi ideology in new forms but with the old criminal content. To prevent and suppress such manifestations in modern society, it is necessary to take the most decisive measures, which includes establishing effective legal barriers.
To address this issue, the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly harmonizes the national legislation of the CSTO Member States in the field of counteracting the manifestations of Nazism.
As a result, the following documents have been adopted: Recommendations on the Improvement of Legislative Support of Countering Crime on the Grounds of National, Racial and Religious Intolerance in the CSTO Member States (November 26, 2015), Recommendations on Improving the National Legislation of the CSTO Member States in the Area of Countering the Dissemination of Nazism and its Manifestations (November 5, 2019) and Address by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to the Parliaments of the Council of Europe Member States on the Occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Victory over Nazism in the Second World War.
The main purpose of the Recommendations is to form theoretically substantiated proposals to fill legal gaps and eliminate existing contradictions in the national legislation of the CSTO Member States in the field of legal regulation of relations to counter the dissemination of Nazism and its manifestations, prevent and suppress criminal activity motivated by national, racial and religious intolerance.
The Recommendations contain proposals to establish a unified conceptual and categorical framework; create a legal foundation to counter the dissemination of Nazism as a specific form of political extremism; introduce a unified approach to the establishment of an appropriate corpus delicti and sanctions for the dissemination of ideology that incites crime motivated by national, racial and religious intolerance; establish legal barriers against the spread of Nazism manifestations in various spheres of social relations, including the ones related to allowing official and business activities and exercising constitutional human rights and freedoms. The Recommendations also contain proposals for organizing international cooperation in the area of combating crime motivated by national, racial and religious intolerance.
Implementation of these Recommendations in the CSTO Member States serves to create a strong legal foundation for counteractive measures aimed at preventing the ideas of Nazism in any form, both as they existed before the 1930s and in their modern form that includes neo-fascism and neo-Nazism.
Anna Filippova,
Associate Professor at the Department of State Law and Criminal Law Disciplines
Plekhanov Russian University of Economics,
Candidate of Legal Sciences (PhD equivalent)