Helsinki Commission Pressed to Strengthen OSCE Human Rights Protections

On July 28, a joint State Department-Congressional commission devoted to integrating security and human rights concerns in Europe held a high-level hearing with US assistant secretaries of state to discuss reforms to the multilateral regional organization founded by the 1975 Helsinki Accords.

Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI) consultant Catherine Fitzpatrick testified before the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), an independent US government body, on the subject of US policy regarding the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an inter-governmental organization comprised of 56 Member States from Europe, Central Asia and North America. In testimony at the session, entitled "U.S. Policy and the OSCE: Making Good on Commitments," Fitzpatrick offered recommendations for strengthening the OSCE's ability to respond to serious human rights violations.

Featured at the hearing were Philip Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Alexander Vershbow, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and Dr. Michael Halzel, Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations. 

Fitzpatrick's testimony stressed that US officials should focus on strengthening the organization's capacity to investigate and condemn allegations of human rights abuse by OSCE Member States.  She noted that although fact-finding into allegations of serious human rights violations is at the heart of the organization's mission, recent years have seen OSCE fact-finding attempts in Central Asia and beyond thwarted by  governments that refuse to tolerate criticism of their human rights records.  Fitzpatrick called for the U.S. to work to strengthen and coordinate the efforts of the various OSCE bodies that have been tasked with fact-finding responsibilities in the past, so that future fact-finding efforts might function more independently and professionally. 

Fitzpatrick specifically pointed to the organization's recent failure to address the conclusions of an international-finding mission that the government had almost exclusively punished ethnic Uzbeks for participating in a 2010 ethnic conflict there, despite the fact that members of the minority group made up approximately 75 percent of the victims of the violence.  She recommended that the OSCE respond to the mission's findings by appointing a special envoy on Central Asia to press for follow-up in Kyrgyzstan as well as in other countries in the region.  Fitzpatrick also suggested that the OSCE create a stand-by rapid-reaction diplomatic mission at the ministerial level.

Fitzpatrick also encouraged U.S. government representatives to devote increased attention to protecting non-governmental organizations in OSCE Member States, and particularly those dedicated to the protection of human rights.  She recommended that the OSCE create a special mandate on freedom of association for this purpose, with particular focus on human rights defenders

The CSCE, also known as the US Helsinki Commission, is an independent US government body that monitors compliance with the Helsinki Accords and aims to advance comprehensive security through promotion of human rights, democracy, and economic, environmental and military cooperation in OSCE Member States. 

JBI has long supported efforts to analyze and strengthen the human rights protection capacity of the OSCE.  These include a 2003 JBI study that analyzed OSCE Member States' fulfilment of pledges to combat antisemitism to inform an OSCE Conference on Antisemitism in 2004.  In 1999, JBI and the International League for Human Rights convened an NGO specialist seminar on strengthening the human rights protection capacity of OSCE field missions.