OSCE/ODIHR Comments on the Draft Convention on Standards of Elections, Voting Rights and Freedoms, Proposed by the Russian Federation's Central Electoral Commission

This report provides a brief assessment of a draft Convention on Elections and Electoral Rights and Freedoms dated 31 July 2001. The text is proposed for adoption by the member States of the Council of Europe. It was drafted by a team of election specialists led by Prof. V. I. Lysenko of the Institute of State and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences, on behalf of the Central Electoral Commission of the Russian Federation. According to Prof. Lysenko’s explanatory note, the aims of the Convention would be, inter alia, to bring together, in a binding international act, the accumulated experience of the Council of Europe in the legal regulation and the conduct of free and democratic elections. It would also concretise the electoral standards flowing from Article 3 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.