The armed conflict in Chechnya before the Russian constitutional court

The constitutionality of four decrees of the central government in the prosecution of the Chechen conflict was challenged in the Russian Constitutional Court by a group of deputies of the State Duma and the Federal Council of the Russian Federation (hereinafter RF).' Among other things, the applicants argued that two of the decrees at issue, namely those providing for the dispatch of armed forces on the territory of the Chechen Republic, had resulted in a violation of international treaties to which the Russian Federation was a party, and of Article 15, paragraph. 4, of the Constitution, by virtue of which both general and conventional international law shall be part of the Russian legal system.