The European Court of Human Rights has yet again condemned the actions of Russian armed forces in Chechnya. The case at hand, Musayev and others v. Russia, concerns a (para-)military operation conducted in early 2000 in the course of which numerous persons were killed and others mistreated. In a unanimous judgment delivered on 26 July, the ECHR found a violation of the right to life, of the prohibition of inhumane and degrading treatment, and of the right to an effective remedy. The Court was surprisingly blunt in its characterisation of the events, referring to the killings as “extrajudicial execution” and…
