A/HRC/11/L.10 page 83 North Caucasus. The lack of effective investigation of the law enforcement response to the Dubrovka theatre siege and the attack on Beslan School No. 1 should be urgently addressed. It expressed serious concern at the harassment of lawyers, journalists and other human rights defenders, and particularly at the murder, in January 2009, of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova. These should be promptly and effectively investigated. It also cited threats and attacks against applicants to the European Court of Human Rights, particularly those from the North Caucasus. The Government should prevent such obstruction of applications to the Court against victims, their families and legal representatives. It regretted that the threat to the independence of lawyers posed by the proposed amendments to the 2002 federal law on legal practice and the bar, which would grant the State registration agency power to initiate court action to remove lawyers’ licences, had not been addressed. It called for the withdrawal of the amendments. Also unaddressed was the practice of informal transfers of suspects from Russia to other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, contrary to the non-refoulement obligation. The Commission asked Russia to invite the special rapporteurs on torture, executions, independence of judges and lawyers and the Working Group on enforced disappearances. 4. Concluding remarks of the State under review 335. The Russian Federation noted that accession to the second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights concerning the abolition of the death penalty would depend on the prevailing view in Russian society on abolition. It noted, however, that the death penalty had been de facto abolished since August 1996 and, since 1999, all prior death sentences had been commuted to life or 25 years of imprisonment. 336. It said that the ratification of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families required an in-depth study to determine the concordance of specific provisions with Russian legislation. With regard to the ratification of ILO Convention No. 169, it stated that current legislation in Russia on indigenous peoples was more progressive and better reflected the particular characteristics of the local situation. 337. The question of ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was being considered, guided by the notion that the decision to accede was the prerogative of the State and made in the State’s own interests. Many factors would be considered, including the initial results of the activities of the Court and outcome of the work to define the crime of aggression.