For those who believe that the re-emergence of realpolitik in the Brown cabinet through the personage of Lord Mandelson is a regrettable turn for British politics, Foreign Secretary David Miliband's pending visit to Moscow will be a great test.
In recent weeks, Miliband has denounced those who he believes have not properly recognised historical facts and fundamental principles relating to episodes of genocide and gross violations of human rights.
His visit to Moscow this week, the first by a British minister since the still unresolved poisoning death of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London, presents an excellent opportunity to further his defence of human rights as well as to improve Russia-UK relations.
These two aims are of course intertwined, an explicit result of the fact that both countries are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights. As the British government's chief diplomat, Miliband owes a binding obligation to reiterate the call that the rule of law in the 21st century should not be limited by borders and must not be defined by the combination of opportunism and impunity that Russians have come to expect from the Gerhard Schröders and Silvio Berlusconis of the world.
There are few more effective ways to express concern about rule of law than to publicly draw attention to the importance of human rights defenders and rule of law advocates where due process falls woefully short – the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky being one such example. As Khodorkovsky's attorney, I am pleased to see that several MPs during a debate in the House of Commons on UK relations with Russia have concurred that this is not only an appropriate issue for the foreign secretary to discuss, but that it "is quite symbolic in the way that Russia approaches law and order, democracy and human rights". I invite the foreign secretary to visit Khodorkovsky's trial to see for himself how rule of law operates in Russia.
There are those who no doubt argue that such an act by the foreign secretary goes against diplomatic convention and practice. To them I would point out that I see little such hesitation from the Russian foreign minister or Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin when they support repression in Iran or the curtailment of human rights. More important, such hesitation to raise this issue with the Russian authorities by definition contravenes the European convention's guarantee that no signatory can abide by continuous and persistent flouting of core human rights and legal principles by another signatory. Anything less would be a disservice to furthering the rule of law.
Robert Amsterdam, international defence lawyer for Mikhail Khodorkovsky.