OSCE

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is the world’s largest regional security organization whose 55 participating States span the geographical area from Vancouver to Vladivostok. It has as one of its three main activities the protection of democracy and human rights. (More detail of the background to the organisation is included in the report of the 2005 meeting.

EHF and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) is based in Warsaw, where it holds a two-week annual conference – the ‘Human Dimension Implementation Meeting’ (HDIM) – where representatives of governments and civil society review both the implementation of the OSCE’s Human Dimension commitments and the procedures and mechanisms for monitoring and enhancing compliance with these commitments. OSCE meetings are attended by representatives of the governments of its member states (which include the USA and Canada, while various other non-European countries attend as observers), of a hundred or more NGOs – non-governmental organisations – and of international organisations such as the Council of Europe.

Since 2005 the EHF has attended these annual conferences for relevant sessions and has taken an active part. We have also contributed to other OSCE events and activities, as detailed below. In June 2009 we compiled a list of the recommendations we had submitted over the years, together with the invitations to our side-meetings at OSCE conferences. In 2010 there was an OSCE-wide Review Conference instead of the usual HDIM.

Vera Pegna, who was a board member of EHF until 2006, was our main representative with OSCE from 2006 until 2010 when Hans Christian Cars took over.

2011: Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

2011: OSCE meeting on combating hate crimes against Christians

2011: Letter to incoming Lithuanian Presidency of ODIHR

2010 Special Human Dimension Implementation Meeting on Freedom of Religion or Belief (Vienna, 9-10 December 2010)

2010 Review Conference (Warsaw, 1 October 2010)

2009 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

2009 Special Human Dimension Implementation Meeting on Freedom of Religion or Belief (Vienna, 9-10 July 2009)

2008 Mediterranean Conference (Amman, 27-28 October 2008)

2008 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Recommendation to the 2007 Mediterranean Seminar (Tel Aviv, 18-19 December 2007)

Letter to the Director of the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, October 2007

Recommendation to the Chairmanship Conference on Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims (Cordoba, 9-10 October 2007)

2007 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

High Level Conference on Combating Discrimination and Promoting Mutual Respect and Understanding (Bucharest, 7-8 June 2007)

2006 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Paper to the Meeting to promote inter-cultural, inter-religion and inter-ethnic understanding (Almaty, 12-13 June 2006)

2005 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

This content last updated 25 February 2013 @ 3:35 pm