OSCE in brief

The OSCE – the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – is a regional security organization with 57 participating States. All European, North American and Central Asian countries are participating States of the OSCE. In addition, the organization has 11 Mediterranean and Asian Partners for Co-operation.

The OSCE operates as a forum for political dialogue between participating States and is a common platform for joint action to improve the living conditions of people living in the OSCE area. The mission of the Organization is to address all phases of the conflict cycle i.e. early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation, as well as to build trust and cooperation between participating States.

The OSCE operates comprehensively in three security-relevant dimensions: politico-military, economic and environmental, and human.

The OSCE took on its current form in 1994, when the CSCE process was expanded and became the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe at the Budapest Summit. The CSCE, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, was a series of conferences where participating States convened to agree on joint obligations for enhancing security and to monitor their implementation. Today, the OSCE is both a political process in which participating States cooperate and enter into dialogue, as well as an organization with a wide range of activities supporting the participating States in putting their OSCE commitments into practice.

The OSCE does not have an international legal personality and its decisions are taken on a politically, but not legally binding basis. However, the OSCE does have permanent decision-making bodies, a Secretariat in Vienna, and an annual budget. In the decision-making process, all participating States have an equal status, and decisions are taken by consensus.

The fundamental principles of the OSCE are still those of the 1975 CSCE Helsinki Final Act. Since then, a number of other decisions have been taken, building on and extending the participating States’ commitments.  The most significant ones include the 1990 Charter of Paris, the outcomes of the Helsinki and Istanbul summits of 1992 and 1999, the 1990 Moscow Concluding Document on human rights, and the Vienna Document on confidence and security building measures.