13/12/2011 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Strasbourg, 13.12.2011 - In a draft resolution adopted today at a meeting in Paris, the Legal Affairs Committee condemns any form of enforced population transfer in Europe and elsewhere as a human rights violation and invites all Council of Europe member states to do so, including in their international relations with states outside Europe.
The draft resolution which will be debated by PACE at its January session, also invites member states to properly investigate their own past with regard to enforced population transfers and to promote the adoption of an international, legally binding instrument which consolidates the existing standards set out in different international law instruments and outlaws all forms of population transfers.
Enforced population transfers have not only occurred in history, the practice and its consequences still affects present conflicts such as those in the Western Balkans, Cyprus and the Caucasus region. Also, deportation on political and ethnic grounds of groups of populations occurred after World War II in the former communist countries and their consequences still exist, the Committee stressed.