Public Domain Information System
Maintaining International Organizations Documents on Human Rights
with Interface, Search Tools and Value-added Services in Russian

The site operates since 2005, main aim of the project is to implement a multifunctional resource to serve university teaching, comparative research, public education, law making in human rights domain. Initially designed to serve citizens, law schools, parliament, courts, and other government agencies in Russia, the public domain site also benefits users in other FSU countries.

The site monitors activities initiated by the Council of Europe main documents in human rights protections - the European Convention on Human Rights and Main Freedoms (ECHR) and European Social Charter (ESC). These two documents compose an integrated mechanism entitled to protect a citizen versus a state. Appropriate procedures are implemented and responsible institutions set forth to control a state.

The part on European Convention on Human Rights and Main Freedoms and the European Court of Human Rights activityupdates:

• a full archive of the European Court of Human Rights' decisions, judgments and other documents;
• Council of Europe, United Nations acts in human rights protection domain;
• publications of the ECHR Secretariat ; and
• reports produced by Russian and international experts.

An archive of the European Court of Human Rights documents is downloaded into a database with friendly interface in Russian. Special module to monitor cases against Russia is implemented. Value-added user services include:

• flexible and user-oriented search tools in Russian;
• profile in Russian to complement each document;
• hyperlinks to Strasbourg case law, Russian national law at issue, translations into Russian, comments in Russian;
• access to European Court/Council of Europe documents available in Russian;
• training module in Russian.

Sources of documents:

• the ECHR archive is legally obtained from the European Court's Secretariat in electronic format (HUDOC DVD). The archive is updated three times a year. The December 2010 version covers 51000+ documents in English and in French;
• translations of Court's documents into Russian are obtained from the Publishing Houses and appropriate institutions;
• publications on the topic of human rights domain are provided by project partners.

In Russia the Federal law on the European Social Charter ratification has been only signed in June 2009. The ESC part of the system covers general info in Russian and in English. Value-added services in Russian are implemented, including links to the Council of Europe site providing access to the countries-members national reports and facts-sheets, Committee on Social Rights resolutions. Part on the ESC implementation in Russia will be accomplished.

The project is undertaken in cooperation with Moscow State ) — electronic library to serve education and research in social and economic sciences.

In 2004-2006 the project was partly funded by the Russian Fund for Basic Research and the MacArthur Foundation, USA.