diplomatic relations before 1940, but had recognised their annexation into the Soviet Union as fait accompli. Third, there were new states emerged after 1940. The United States position was originally based on the Stimson Doctrine applied to the Occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Welles Declaration. The legal continuity of the three Baltic states relies in big part on the Stimson Doctrine applied to the 1940 Soviet invasion, occupation and annexation of the Baltic states by the Welles Declaration. The Declaration enabled the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to maintain independent diplomatic missions to the US, and the Executive Order 8484 protected Baltic financial assets between 1940-1991. This policy of non-recognition gave rise to the principle of legal continuity, which held that de jure, the Baltic states remained independent states under illegal occupation throughout the period 1940–91. Soviet Union and Russian Federation The last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev established a 26-member Commission to evaluate the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its Secret Protocols. The Commission agreed that the Pact existed and its content was contrary to Baltic–Soviet treaties. The Commission was not able to reach consensus on the effects of the pact, since it would open the possibility to Baltic exit from the Soviet Union. The issue has not been discussed in the Russian Federation since the report of the Commission in 1989. Contemporary Russian Federation has refused to be bound pre-1940 agreements which the Soviet Union had entered with either Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia has announced that the distortion of history and allegations of unlawful occupations are the main reasons for the problems in the Baltics–Russia relations. At the same time, the Russian Federation claims that it continues as the legal personality of the former Soviet Union is jeopardised by its own indecisiveness of the relationship between the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union obligations did not continue automatically with the Russian Federation. Decisions were made on a case by case basis. The Russian Federation weighted carefully the degree to which the continuity was its interest, especially in the field of bilateral relations and debts. European Court of Human Rights Following the admission of post-Soviet states into the Council of Europe in the second half of the 1990s, a number of cases related to the question of the legality