I think that Human Rights Watch gets some points for innovation today. In preparing their 2008 World Report, instead of carrying out the same old tired exercise of denouncing the atrocious human rights abuses perpetrated by this and that misbehaving government, they instead aim their barbed criticism at the governments of the United States and European Union for their propping up of cosmetic democracies, causing great damage to human rights. “It’s now too easy for autocrats to get away with mounting a sham democracy,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch in an interview with AFP. “That’s because too many Western governments insist on elections and leave it at that. They don’t press governments on the key human rights issues that make democracy function — a free press, peaceful assembly, and a functioning civil society that can really challenge power.” A lot of attention is given to Russia in the report, and special criticism is given to the “rhetorical games” played by Vladislav Surkov for co-opting of the vocabulary with “sovereign democracy.” Given that Dmitri Medvedev has stated his disagreement with the sovereign democracy concept, perhaps Russia can look for more ways to get a more favorable mention in HRW’s next report. One good first step might be to stop trying to block George Clooney from speaking about Darfur…. Excerpts related to Russia from the document are extracted below – the complete text can be read here.