Delivering on the Promise: Human Rights, OSCE Field Missions, and Election Activities

A Seminar Sponsored by the
Jacob Blaustein Institute for the
Advancement of Human Rights and the
International League for Human Rights

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This report is based on papers and discussions at a seminar organized by the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights and the International League for Human Rights, held in Washington, DC on April 19, 1999. The seminar was attended by two dozen scholars, NGO experts, and government officials interested in promoting the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The recommendations were presented to the OSCE Human Dimension Seminar on Field Missions and Human Rights held in Warsaw on April 27-29, 1999, and subsequently updated in September 1999.
Executive Summary of Recommendations

OSCE's expansion from a conference into an insitution with many new states over the past decade has also been accompanied by a dramatic movement into field-based activities which offer the promise of implementation of OSCE commitments on the ground.

While an intergovernmental organization of 54 members, with all the ensuing diplomatic constraints and political limitations, OSCE has distinguished itself in 25 years as an institution which encourages citizens to "know and act upon their rights" and which explicitly recognizes the "Human Dimension" as indivisible from economic and security issues. It is precisely this capacity for including the public that has made OSCE the "institution of choice" for handling both chronic and emergency conflict situations.

What binds the diverse OSCE field programs together is their goal of contributing to the development of long-term local capacity for the protection of human rights and democratic institutions in each member country. Given its unique nature and the challenging assignments it
faces, OSCE must integrate its long-standing concern for human rights in all its field activities, both in the mandates and the day-to-day operations.

To that end, we recommend the following proposals:

1. Clarity of Mandates. The OSCE should make the process of mandate-creation, as well as memoranda of understanding, transparent and clear, allowing for full consultations with the entire scope of actors who stand to benefit or be harmed. Clarity of mandates, negotiated before
deployment of missions, should be favored over vague agreements merely to achieve presence.

2. Mainstreaming of Human Rights Monitoring and Intervention. Human rights monitoring should be a required element of all mission mandates, regardless of their size or general purpose. Human rights intervention by heads of mission and staff should be integrated into field activities,
and contingencies planned.

3. Public Outreach and Reporting. OSCE should pay particular attention to year-round, frequent, reporting on human rights conditions, and work closely with local NGOs, civic movements and press, and to that end, make OSCE field reports public and accessible to the extent possible.

4. Integrity and Integration of Human Rights Reporting. OSCE must ensure the independence of human rights reporting efforts, shield human rights monitors from political influence and the exigencies of elections negotiations, and secure relevant conditions for their work. At the same time, field activities must also integrate monitors' findings into conflict negotiations, and human rights concerns must be built into peace agreements.

5. Protection of Civilians, Early Warning, Prevention. The protection of civilians under threat should be a key and explicit purpose of field missions. Protection strategies need to be prevention-oriented, proactive rather than reactive. Early warning systems need to not only warn, but help provide specific recommendations which are both practical and policy-oriented.

6. Clarity of Election Pronouncements. As a guiding principle, the 1994 Budapest Summit's conclusion that "Election monitoring is not a one-day event" must mean monitoring should take place before, during, and after election campaigns, and that the two-tier system of assessment and monitoring must be communicated clearly, and deployed effectively. The decision to send full-fledged observation teams must be linked specifically to an acceptable level of freedom of association for civic organizations and freedom of media.

7. Representative on Freedom of Association. The establishment of a mandate for a Representative on Freedom of Association is recommended, by analogy to the Representative on Freedom of the Media, whose mandate is "to observe relevant media developments and provide rapid response to serious non-compliance with OSCE principles and commitments." A person of eminence and impartiality should be appointed, with the ability to respond quickly and effectively to complaints from civic organizations, to promote the legalization of non-governmental organizations, political parties, and trade unions according to the Copenhagen Document, and to reach the highest levels of the OSCE system rapidly, with specific recommendations to achieve the full legitimization of civil society.

8. Coordination Inside and Outside OSCE. There must be better coordination with other international organizations, including humanitarian groups, and improved interaction of OSCE components with each other. Efforts should be made to share information, keep policies
consistent, and determine the effectiveness of various institutions' existing programs before authorizing technical assistance grants.

9. Human Rights Training and Professionalization. OSCE must seek greater professionalization in the recruitment, training, and management of personnel and place a clear priority on strengthening human rights training. Accordingly, OSCE should develop a code of conduct for mission staff., articulating the responsibility of all field mission personnel to
uphold and demonstrate respect for human rights standards and the furtherance of OSCE commitments when they are operational in the field, as the very credibility of OSCE is at stake. In addition to the code for operational conduct, OSCE should develop and implement standard personnel management practices and rules of behavior for all field employees.

10. Evaluation of OSCE field programs should be routine and involve debriefing mission personnel,assessing human rights problems and achievements, compiling and disseminating lessons learned, and involving the public in the designing and assessment of programs.

Always and everywhere, OSCE should seek freedom of operation and implementation of its field activities, not just freedom of movement for its mission personnel. It should not accept mere cooperation from governments as a substitute for compliance with OSCE commitments.

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