Dmitry Shabelnikov

Dmitry Shabelnikov is Director for Eurasia at PILnet: The Public Interest Law Network, an international NGO. He has been leading efforts to promote legal aid reforms in Russia and develop clinical legal education there. Following the expansion of the PILnet Moscow office in 2007, he has continued to steer major PILnet strategies in Russia, including legal aid reform and legal education reform initiatives and the expansion of pro bono practice. Since 2017, he has been also leading PILnet’s work in post-Soviet countries. Before joining PILnet in 2003, he worked in various capacities for the Moscow offices of the American Bar Association's Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA CEELI) and the Ford Foundation. Shabelnikov has authored, edited, and translated several books and numerous articles on public interest law, legal aid, legal education, pro bono, and other related subjects.

07/07/2017

Vera Vrubel: “Here I Was, Mad as Hell”

Resident of St. Petersburg on Her Crusade against a Homophobic Entrepreneur Russian businessman German Sterligov is known for his ultra-Orthodox Christian views, among other […]
01/02/2018

A Case of Two Stamps

On 4 January 2018, two men, both Russian nationals, were legally married in Copenhagen, Denmark. On 25 January 2018, after returning to Moscow, they […]
19/02/2018

It is like that phrase “don’t think about white bear”

Polish law professor Monika Platek reflects on the controversial Polish law on criminal liability for publicly implicating the state or people of Poland in Nazi crimes.
03/04/2018

Prisoner No. 7

Seventy years after Raoul Wallenberg's disappearance in the Lubyanka prison, his family is suing the FSB for access to prison archives.
14/05/2018

Lawyers in the “Prisoners of Sheremetyevo” case appeared before the European Court’s Grand Chamber

The ECHR’s judgment in favor of the four applicants who had to stay in the airport’s transit zone for five to twenty-three months to be reviewed.
15/08/2018

“Violence is usually revealed only after the woman is murdered”

We interviewed two women lawyers who litigate domestic violence cases and defend other rights of women living in the North Caucasus.
04/09/2018

“We have seen children here who have never made a drawing in their lives”

Humanitarian crisis on the border in Brest: a perspective from Belarus
28/11/2018

Galina Arapova: “You get the uncomfortable feeling of trying to break a wall with your head…”

We interviewed Galina Arapova, head of the Russian NGO Mass Media Defense Centre, about the fight for freedom of expression in Russia today.