Publication

This paper analyzes Russia's membership in the Council of Europe (CoE) and Russia's partial compliance to the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) Protocol No 6, which refers to the abolishment of the death penalty in peacetime. The author argues that such a partial compliance is explained by the lack of a coherent and widely accepted national identity in Russia. The paper states that the more Russian state actors value the European identity of their state, the more they will seek to comply with "European" norms, such as the strong European abolitionist norm regarding the death penalty.