We,
members of the Civic Solidarity Platform (CSP), believe that restricting civil
society participation in the work of the OSCE would be a tremendous setback for
the Helsinki process and a betrayal of the spirit and founding values of this
unique peace advancement initiative.
For
four decades, civil society groups have played a crucial role in monitoring,
documenting and reporting on the implementation of the human dimension
commitments undertaken by participating States in the framework of the
Conference and later the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
By engaging with the OSCE, NGOs have helped to keep human rights high on the
agenda, mobilize attention to human rights crises and shape OSCE action on
pressing human rights issues. Now some governments, which have adopted
legislation and policies restricting civil society activities in their own
countries, are pushing for new rules and regulations to limit civil society
participation at the level of the OSCE. Introducing measures to this end would
negatively and irreversibly affect the OSCE’s credibility at a time when civil
society actors are facing unprecedented pressure across the region and, more
than ever, need OSCE forums to make their voices heard.
The
OSCE was the first international structure to embrace a comprehensive approach
to security, with participating States agreeing to establish respect for human
rights as one of its founding pillars and to be held accountable to each other
and to their citizens for their achievements in this regard. When signing the
Helsinki Final Act in 1975, states from both the then Western and Eastern bloc
also acknowledged the right of individuals to know and act upon their rights,
as well as to contribute to the Helsinki process, commitments that have
subsequently been reiterated in numerous OSCE documents. In addition, the
signatories to the Helsinki Final Act undertook to publish and disseminate this
document as widely as possible within their countries. The Helsinki Conference
and Final Act inspired the emergence of so-called Helsinki groups in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe to monitor compliance with the accords. Although these
groups were forced to operate underground and were fiercely persecuted by their
governments, they carried out their activities in a determined manner,
supported by solidarity groups set up in Western countries. As we know from
history, the Helsinki groups were part of the grassroots movements that helped
bring about the collapse of the communist rule and the end of the Cold War.
Both these pioneers and civil society groups that have continued their
groundbreaking work have been guided by the belief that citizens’ participation
is an intrinsic element of the Helsinki process and thus of efforts to secure
peace and prosperity in the OSCE region.
The
current modalities for civil society participation in OSCE events are laid down
in the Concluding Document from the 1992 Helsinki meeting, as well as Permanent
Council decision no. 476 adopted in 2002. These regulations grant NGO
representatives the right to participate and provide input on an equal footing
with government representatives at human rights review conferences,
implementation meetings and seminars on condition that they register with the
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). States that seek
to change these rules and restrict NGO access advocate for procedures that
would grant governments the right to approve and thereby block the
participation of civil society representatives, for example, because their
organizations are not registered at the national level, they are considered to
lack “relevant” experience or they are accused of supporting “extremism” or
”terrorism”. Any state approval procedure of this kind would be contrary to the
basic principle of unhindered and equal NGO participation in OSCE events and
would open the door for arbitrary, selective, discriminatory and politically
motivated decisions to limit access for organizations and individuals who
criticize the policies of their governments and address issues that are
inconvenient to them. In the past, some participating States have already
sought to prevent the participation of outspoken civil society representatives
from their countries at the annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting and
other OSCE events.
Recent
years have seen a growing trend of shrinking and even closing civil society
space in many countries of the OSCE region.[i] As part of this trend, states have
exploited security concerns to justify far-reaching restrictions on civil
society and to crack down on NGOs that work on “sensitive” issues, in
particular human rights. Among others, states have denied registration and
forced NGOs to close down, labelled them “foreign agents”, and prosecuted their
leaders using broadly worded extremism and terrorism legislation that does not
meet the fundamental principle of legality and can be applied to conduct that
has nothing to do with violence.[ii] Human rights groups and defenders working
to promote women’s rights, minority rights and the rights of vulnerable
communities have in particular been singled out for persecution. Repressive
policies of this kind pursued at the national level must not be allowed to
influence the procedures and rules for NGO participation at the OSCE level by
allowing participating States to justify restricting access to groups that have
been targeted merely for exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of
expression, association and assembly in a peaceful and legitimate way.
Former
UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of
Association Maina Kiai has warned of the danger of closing civil society space
at the international level because of the efforts of some governments to
silence NGOs not only in their own countries but also on the international
stage.[iii] Along with NGOs, he has criticized the
existing accreditation procedure for NGOs through the UN Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC), the Committee on NGOs of which decides on UN consultative
status for NGOs. Possessing consultative states grants NGOs access to a range
of UN bodies and processes, including the Human Rights Council where they can
deliver oral and written statements and organize side-events. As highlighted in
a joint appeal signed by over 230 NGOs from over 45 countries in May 2016[iv], some states use the ECOSOC accreditation
procedure to deliberately delay or block NGOs from participation at the UN,
through perpetual questioning and repeated deferrals of applications for
accreditation. This has resulted in that NGOs have been denied accreditation
for years. Thus, through their actions, individual states have turned what is
meant to be a primarily technical role of the ECOSOC NGO Committee into a
politicized practice used to obstruct access for NGOs working on issues that
they do not like. Human rights NGOs are amongst those facing the most obstacles
in gaining accreditation.
As
the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of
Association has stressed[v], the misuse of the ECOSOC accreditation
procedure to block NGO access has “profoundly undermine[d] the ability of the
United Nations to constructively engage with civil society”, with negative
implications for the effectiveness and credibility of the organization as a
whole. This example should serve as a warning to the OSCE. Rather than
introducing any regulations or procedures that may be used to restrict NGO
access for politically motivated reasons, the OSCE should focus on improving
and further strengthening opportunities for NGOs to participate in and
contribute to the work of the organization. To this end, the participating
States should consider introducing new formats for government-civil society
dialogue and civil society consultations, as a complement to existing ones.[vi] In accordance with its founding values,
the OSCE has a responsibility to stand up for civil society organizations that
are repressed and denied fundamental rights at home and to provide a platform
for them to voice their positions since they lack direct channels of
communication with their governments.
The
OSCE participating States have themselves repeatedly recognized that the
involvement of civil society is crucial in achieving progress on the objectives
of the organization and they have committed themselves to ensuring that members
of civil society groups have unhindered access to the OSCE and other
international organizations. The OSCE Guidelines on the Protection of Human
Rights Defenders, which are based on OSCE commitments and universally
recognized human rights standards, also require the participating States to
refrain from any action undermining the right of human rights defenders to
provide information, submit cases or participate in meetings with international
bodies, including OSCE institutions.[vii]
As
in the case of the UN, ensuring continued unhindered access for NGOs to OSCE
events is not only a matter of safeguarding the rights of these groups and the
communities they represent, but also of safeguarding the effectiveness,
credibility and very raison d’être of the OSCE. The organization was
established to promote peace, stability, democracy and the rights of the people
of the vast region stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok rather than as a
forum for governments to protect their interests. The recent attempts by some
participating States to restrict civil society participation run counter to
these objectives and may in themselves be considered early warning signs of
threats to peace and stability in the OSCE region. The participation of civil society
actors, who address crosscutting issues of human security, is a key element of
the organization’s comprehensive and inclusive security agenda and a
precondition for the success of conflict prevention, democratization and
peacebuilding processes in the long term. We appeal to all OSCE participating
States to ensure that the organization continues to serve its founding role in
years to come and that government-civil society dialogue remains at the heart
of the Helsinki process.
Signed
by the following CSP members:
International
Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR, Belgium)
Bulgarian Helsinki Committee
Public Verdict (Russia)
Helsinki Committee of Armenia
Swiss Helsinki Committee
Macedonian Helsinki Committee
Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine)
DRA – German-Russian Exchange (Germany)
Kharkiv Regional Foundation “Public Alternative” (Ukraine)
Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights (Russia)
Union of Women of the Don Region (Russia)
Hungarian Helsinki Committee
Citizens’ Watch (Russia)
Protection of Rights without Borders (Armenia)
Human Rights Movement “Bir Duino-Kyrgyzstan”
Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law
Legal Policy Research Center (Kazakhstan)
Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House
Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor (Armenia)
Human Rights Matter (Germany)
Office of Civil Freedoms (Tajikistan)
Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Poland)
Public Association “Dignity” (Kazakhstan)
Regional Center for Strategic Studies (Georgia/Azerbaijan)
Austrian Helsinki Association
Crude Accountability (United States)
Human Rights Center “Viasna” (Belarus)
Association of Ukrainian Human Rights Monitors on Law Enforcement (UMDPL)
SOVA Centre for Information and Analysis (Russia)
Article 19 (United Kingdom)
ZARA – Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-Arbeit (Austria)
IDP Women Association “Consent” (Georgia)
Kosova Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (KRCT)
Moscow Helsinki Group
Nota Bene (Tajikistan)
Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan
Netherlands Helsinki Committee
Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights (CILD)
UNITED for Intercultural Action (Netherlands)
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights (Austria)
Promo LEX (Moldova)
Human Rights Group “Citizen. Army. Law” (Russia)
Humanrights.ch (Switzerland)
Fair Trials (United Kingdom)
Center for Participation and Development (CPD, Georgia)
Human Rights Monitoring Institute (Lithuania)
World Organization against Torture (OMCT)
Minority Rights Group Europe
Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS, Azerbaijan)
OSCE Network (Sweden)
Norwegian Helsinki Committee
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Germany
[i]
See Hamburg Declaration on Protecting and Expanding Civil Society Space,
adopted by the participants of the 2016 OSCE Parallel Civil Society Conference,
Hamburg, 6-7 December 2017,
http://www.civicsolidarity.org/sites/default/files/parallel_civil_society_conference_outcome_documents_hamburg_december_2016_final.pdf;
as well as the outcome document of the 2017 OSCE Parallel Civil Society
Conference, Vienna, 5-6 December 2017.
[ii]
See the Vienna Declaration: Preventing Security Measures from Eclipsing Human
Rights, adopted by the participants of the 2017 OSCE Parallel Civil Society
Conference.
[iii]
See comment at http://freeassembly.net/news/commentary-ngo-committee/
[iv]
The appeal is available at
https://www.ishr.ch/sites/default/files/documents/final_ecosoc_ngo_committee_english.pdf
[v]
See http://freeassembly.net/news/commentary-ngo-committee/
[vi]
For more recommendations on how to improve civil society participation in the
OSCE, see the outcome document of the 2017 OSCE Parallel Civil Society
Conference, Vienna, 5-6 December 2017.
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