The most meaningful achievement during Ireland's presidency of the Council of Europe has been a perceptible softening of Russia's approach towards human rights in Chechnya. At the weekend, as representatives of governments and non-governmental human rights organisations met in Dublin Castle at a major conference, a noteworthy concession towards the Council's role was made in Moscow.
The special human rights commissioner for Chechnya under Russia's acting presidency, Mr Vladimir Kalamanov, announced that the Kremlin was prepared to allow the Council to base two human rights experts in Chechnya. This marks a shift from the Kremlin's original position which ruled out any international involvement in the Chechen crisis.
This attitude ran counter to the very principles under which the Council of Europe was founded in 1949 as the main promoter of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, Russia had every reason to believe that it could afford to ignore Strasbourg's rebukes. Larger member states had, after all, frequently done so in the past.
It has been a mark of the Council's ineffectiveness that it waited until after the 50th anniversary of its foundation before appointing its own human rights commissioner. Hopefully, this extremely belated move marks the start of a much more proactive attitude on the Council's part.
The Chechen problem has been the first task to face the new commissioner, Mr Alvaro Gil Robles. His visits to Moscow, the refugee camps in Ingushetia and the destroyed city of Grozny have coincided with a shift in the Russian administration's attitude to international involvement in the crisis and in its previously unbending response to allegations of human rights abuses.
Mr Kalamanov, while reiterating that Moscow was not pursuing a policy of repression, referred at least to the possibility of "some isolated unfortunate incidents". And the Russian parliament's human rights commissioner, Mr Oleg Mironov, has conceded that there may have been incidences of mistreatment of prisoners in Chechnya and elsewhere.
However grudging these admissions may appear, they should be regarded as welcome shifts in direction by Russia in its attitude to the Chechen situation. The Council of Europe can legitimately take credit for this movement by the Kremlin away from its previously intransigent stance. But it must not allow itself to be satisfied with minor concessions.
It is important to note, for example, that while the two representatives in Chechnya will be allowed freedom of movement in the region, restrictions will be placed on their contacts with the media and on what Mr Kalamanov described as "the transfer of information."
Russia is open to some leverage from the Council. It does not want to be singled out as a state in breach of its human rights obligations. But it also knows that the Council of Europe would be extremely unwilling to diminish its status as an international organisation by expelling Russia or suspending its membership.