Introduction
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is an intergovernmental group made up of 57 European, North American, and Asian nations and 11 “partners for cooperation” in Africa and Oceania. Founded during the Cold War as a neutral forum for discussion between the Western and Eastern blocs, the mandate of the OSCE has evolved from one of discussion between great powers into an organization that defends human rights, oversees elections, and monitors active combat zones.
Even as the OSCE’s mandate has evolved, the core mission of “promoting stability, peace, and democracy” has remained constant. The end of the Cold War did not bring about an end to all conflict in the broader Eurasian area, and the OSCE has been involved in mediating conflicts in recent decades. More recently, the OSCE has been involved in everything from a mission to monitor ceasefire violations in Ukraine to collaborating with its member countries to “strengthen cooperation on environmental issues.”
History of OSCE
The OSCE was created in 1975, at the signing of the Helsinki Accords. At the time, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a “détente,” a period of warmer relations between the two historic rivals. The Nixon presidency and the Brezhnev premiership was an era of decreased tension, eventually leading to both powers attending the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in the early 1970s. After years of deliberations, the nations represented at the conference agreed to sign a document entitled the Helsinki Final Act, commonly referred to as the Helsinki Accords. This document outlined a set of politico-military, economic, environmental, and human rights commitments. This was the first time the USSR made explicit human rights commitments.
After the signing of the Accords, the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe continued to serve as a forum for meetings and began certifying whether states were meeting the commitments they made in Helsinki. After the end of the Cold War, the group’s name was changed to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and its role began to expand beyond its original purpose. The organization has come to play a large part in mediating inter-state disputes, overseeing elections, and even maintain missions in certain regions to prevent conflicts.
How Does the OSCE Work?
The OSCE maintains a policy of neutrality, so serves a different purpose and operates differently from organizations like NATO and CSTO. Harkening back to its past as a forum for discussion and mediation, much more emphasis is placed on summits: meetings where heads of state and ambassadors from member countries make long-term decisions and set goals for the entire organization. Other representative bodies include the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, made up of representatives from every member state. The Parliamentary Assembly passes resolutions about issues like human rights, democracy, and environmental issues in order to ensure member states are meeting the commitments they made in Helsinki.
The Permanent Council is the primary OSCE decision-making body. This Council contains delegates from every member state and representatives from each of the OSCE’s Partners for Cooperation. All decisions at the Permanent Council are made by consensus. The OSCE also has multiple executive structures, including the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and Representative on Freedom of the Media. These institutions are another method the OSCE uses to ensure member states are fulfilling their commitments.
What Does the OSCE Do?
The OSCE has an active presence in a dozen countries, mostly former Soviet and Yugoslav states. These field offices “assist host countries in putting their OSCE commitments into practice” and “enable the OSCE to tackle crises as they arise.” The key goals of these missions are to restore trust between former rivals and build lasting peace in regions that have faced conflict and war. Field operations also focus on helping states control crime and terrorism, transition to democracy, clear minefields from past wars, and negotiate settlements of conflicts as they develop on the ground.
The OSCE maintains a large presence in Ukraine, deploying both a monitoring mission focused on the Donbas region and a coordinator that is helping Ukraine with issues from the transition to democracy to cybercrime and human trafficking. The OSCE’s monitoring mission is an “unarmed, civilian mission” whose task is to “observe and report in an impartial and objective way on the situation in Ukraine.” This work is integral as tensions escalate in the region and all parties attempt to reach a peaceful settlement.
OSCE field offices are also active in former Yugoslav republics such as Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo, helping them build resilient institutions and repair the damage of conflicts in the 1990s. The OSCE helps these nations clear land mines, run counter-terrorist operations, and defend their democratic institutions. In states and regions with ongoing conflicts like Moldova and the South Caucasus, the OSCE facilitates discussions between all parties and is working to resolve their respective territorial disputes.
The OSCE’s primary function is to serve as a forum for discussion. In this capacity, the organization operates forums like the OSCE Minsk Group, which has been the main diplomatic process attempting to bring an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the South Caucasus. The group has published assessments of the situation and hosts infrequent meetings between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to discuss the conflict. The OSCE is also involved in the “5+2” format that is currently mediating the Transnistrian territorial conflict and the Geneva International Discussions, a forum for mediating the crisis in Georgia. OSCE successfully mediated discussions between multiple states in the former Yugoslavia after the Dayton Peace Accords, resulting in more transparency and arms control between the former rivals.
The OSCE Minsk group is one of the most visible and prominent examples of OSCE mediation today. The group has been focused on reaching a peaceful settlement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the First Nagorno-Karabakh War ended in 1994. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a region of Azerbaijan populated by Armenians declared independence and sought to join Armenia. Following a bloody war, the Armenians were able to secure de-facto autonomy and an uneasy status quo began. Despite winning the war, the newly established Republic of Artsakh was not recognized by any U.N. member states, including Armenia. For the next few decades, OSCE sponsored a forum for the two sides to come to a permanent solution that would respect the rights of refugees from both sides and the self-determination rights of the inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh. The group continuously worked to facilitate a settlement, hosting multiple conferences between Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders and monitoring the situation on the ground from their offices in Yerevan and Baku.
Criticisms
Although the Minsk group was one of the best avenues for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, it also demonstrated some of the structural issues with OSCE and was the subject of criticism. The group moved very slowly—little came of the talks held between the two rivals and frequent border clashes killed dozens of Armenian and Azerbaijani servicemembers. In 2020, a war broke out between the two sides, which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Armenians and allegations of war crimes by both sides. The Minsk group was unable to facilitate a peaceful settlement and now risks being cast aside by both nations in favor of a more violent solution to the crisis.
The reasons for the Minsk Group’s apparent failure in Nagorno-Karabakh reflect criticisms of the organization. The ery structure of the organization is focused on neutrality—by definition, OSCE is a pan-European security organization. Multiple post-Soviet nations, including Azerbaijan, have attempted to cripple OSCE’s ability to monitor their compliance with the Helsinki Accords, attacking the organization in the press and even closing down OSCE offices. Much like many other international organizations, OSCE has no way of enforcing resolutions and only operates with the consent of its member states. The Permanent Council is made up of nations with conflicting national interests, making it difficult for the organization to agree on and implement policy. OSCE’s consensus approach to making larger political decisions makes this task even more difficult, as all members must agree on a path forward to resolve disputes between nations that are often at odds with each other and both sit on the council.
OSCE also faces financial challenges. The organization’s annual budget is only €138 million, less than 3% of the UN’s. This has left OSCE overstretched and unable to carry out its mandate. As of 2017, OSCE was only able to deploy 6 monitors to the 200-kilometer line of contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in Nagorno-Karabakh. For comparison, the United Nations maintains a peacekeeping force of 15,000 in South Sudan, with a budget of $1 billion.
These challenges come at a time when Europe is becoming increasingly politically divided, and old divisions between east and west are on the rise. The new situation in Europe requires an organization like OSCE to mediate future disputes, coordinate international responses, and monitor conflicts to ensure peace and stability.
