Over the course of the last forty years, the OSCE’s “area of responsibility” remains a zone of protracted conflicts. Certainly, the amount of violence in the region is less acute in comparison to other hot beds across the globe; however, the number and nature of potential conflicts on its territory give reason enough for careful consideration and urgent action. Be it dormant hostilities in the Balkans or Transnistria, the smoldering stand-off in Nagorno Karabakh, or the frozen conflicts...
Among the multitude of international organizations existing today, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is a unique case. It brings together 57 states across three continents in an effort to build peace and prosperity based on a comprehensive understanding of security.
For the past 40 years, despite all the crises and disagreements the OSCE has faced, it has been able to overcome them successfully, as its member states time and again have realized the importance and necessity...
The Helsinki Final Act of 1975 was a political breakthrough in Cold War Europe. Despite being hardline adversaries, the West and the Communist bloc managed to agree on common principles for the conduct of foreign and domestic policy. These principles included sovereign equality, refraining from the threat or use of force, and respect for human rights. The Helsinki Final Act helped European countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain to overcome their divide. After 1991, the CSCE/OSCE was the spearhead...
“As we analyze our situation and our possibilities, there is no reason for complacency. But we must not be discouraged if in the short term we cannot find the right answers to the multitude of old and new challenges confronting us”
[1]
Wilhelm Höynck, 1994
Our world is rapidly changing due to increasingly complex and contradictory processes that are having a significant influence on the dynamics and transformation of the international system. New centers of power are rising, the...
The results of the “Euro-Atlantic Security: The Role of the OSCE in the Changing World” essay contest for young foreign affairs specialists, organized by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) as part of the Helsinki+40 project are in. RIAC would like to thank everybody who took part in the contest and congratulate the winners!...