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8 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1 (1973)
The Right of a Convicted Citizen to Leave His Country

handle is hein.journals/hcrcl8 and id is 3 raw text is: Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review Volume 8, Number 1 January, 1973 THE RIGHT OF A CONVICTED CITIZEN TO LEAVE HIS COUNTRY by Valery Chalidze* In recent years there has been a growing recognition that civil rights and civil liberties problems are not peculiar to the United States and indeed that they are not domestic problems. The Sharpesville Massacre, the Biafran War, and last year's events in Bangladesh show that civil rights issues are both prevalent in every nation and of concern to all nations. The work of Valery Chalidze's human rights committee in the US.S.R. has attracted the attention of the Review's Editors because it exemplifies this international aspect ofcivildrights and civil liberties. Like American civil rights groups, the Soviet human rights committee aimed at reforming certain aspects of Soviet government while acting within the established system of law. Reform topics included the right to freedom of speech (secured by the USSR.'s constitution), and an end to restrictions on religious and ethnic minorities-all such rights currently being protected by international declarations and covenants. The Soviet authorities have generally given these reform ers a hostile response, including legal and extra-legal suppression. This article takes the reform effort one step further: if government authorities find a reformer's efforts so dangerous to established society as to require his exclusion from that society, should not the reformer be given the option of going tojail or removing himself absolutely from the society through emigration?It is against this background that Valery Chalidze's theory ofa right ofconvictedpersons to emigrate must be tested. Parallels in the United States abound. Would it be better for war protestors to have had their day in court before fleeing, this time legally, to Canada? Should Eldridge Cleaver have stood trial and thereafter been offered the right to emigrate to Algeria? The Editors believe that Valery Chalidze's attempt to find a solution to the problems ofSoviet civil libertarians on this matter will prompt a serious review of our own policies. Responses to the thesis are invited. *Biographical information on Dr. Chalidze, who is currently a resident of the United States, may be found infra at p. 15. This text embodies the thesis of a report prepared by the author for the Uppsala conference on the right to leave any country and the right to return to one's own country. This article vas translated from the Russian by Lowry Wyman, Master's Degree candidate in the Soviet Union Program at Harvard University.

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