Unlike his UN counterpart, Mrs Mary Robinson, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Alvaro Gil-Robles, has a relatively low profile, although he is active on a wide range of issues. (Mrs Robinson has announced she will be stepping down in the autumn.)
Recently returned from his third visit to the Republic of Chechnya in 18 months, the law professor and former Spanish ombudsman has the air of some one who has gained a fairly deep insight into man's inhumanity to man. Mr Gil-Robles's office at the Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg looks out on a tranquil scene that is distinctly at odds with the troubled region on the other side of Europe that he has come to know so well.
Sadly but predictably, there was little in the way of good news in his report on the visit. The document said the overall situation in Chechnya remained "fraught with difficulty and conflict". The fabric of Chechen society had disintegrated and normal life was "virtually impossible". Many civilians continued to live in refugee camps with insufficient food and inadequate healthcare.
He tells of the dire need for humanitarian assistance for the reconstruction of Chechnya and the need for the distribution of the aid to be internationally monitored to ensure it reaches the right people. During his visit he heard of several cases where foodstuffs provided free by humanitarian groups ended up being sold on the black market.
In addition to shortage of the basic materials for survival, there is a lack of personal security. A significant number of people have disappeared without trace, abducted not only by Russians but by Chechen combatants also. "It cannot be said that the Russian authorities are any closer to being able to guarantee the personal safety of the people of Chechnya", the Gil-Robles report states. Several non-governmental organisations in Moscow told him that "some of the persons reported missing have since been found in mass graves". There were also claims of summary executions, torture and extortion.
"The second problem is the political and institutional reconstruction of Chechnya," he says. He proposes the organisation of a seminar in Chechnya to map out a political future. "Amongst other things, the aim of this seminar would be the discussion of a future constitution for the region."
The third and most important requirement was to put an end to the current violence in Chechnya and what he calls "the environment of impunity" in which this violence was taking place. It was essential to this end that incidents were fully and properly investigated - "which has not always been the case to date and in fact has rarely been the case".
Up to now, the Russians themselves had conducted the investigations but they had accepted a proposal from Mr GilRobles to establish a "mixed working group" involving international experts and Russian military prosecutors so that cases can be independently monitored. He found it "totally unacceptable" that only three cases out of 82 sent to the military prosecutors had received any sort of official investigation.
Echoing the language of Kafka, the commissioner continued: "Of the three that have received a response, it was not even specified what that response consisted of: they had just been responded to." He said large-scale military operations had finished in Chechnya but skirmishes continued. He wants to see a Chechen civilian police force established to keep order.
Did he believe the Russian government was serious about eliminating human rights abuses by its troops? "It's a good question. None the less, certain things are beginning to change. They are trying to be more transparent and bring a little bit more order into the situation." In this kind of conflict there were no winners: "My concern is that the people of Chechnya don't suffer any more."
He points out that he began his work in Chechnya during the Irish Presidency of the Council of Europe. "It was in large measure due to their active interest in this matter that so much has been achieved," he says. "The Irish acquitted themselves well."