Lecture "The Evolving Role of OSCE: From Helsinki to Astana"

Astana, 12.11.2009  |  speech

Lecture by Dr Danilo Türk, President of the Republic of Slovenia, at the Public Administration Academy in Astana: "The Evolving Role of OSCE: From Helsinki to Astana"
Astana, 12 November 2009

Thank you very much,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is a great pleasure to address this Academy and its students. It is exciting to offer this lecture as President of the Republic of Slovenia and as a part of my visit to Kazakhstan.

I’m also excited about the fact that Kazakhstan is preparing for the presidency of the OSCE, an organisation, which we share, Slovenia and Kazakhstan, and with which our countries have deep and diverse experience. We are members of OSCE for almost 20 years by now. We have seen the transformation of that organisation in that period. Slovenia has also presided the OSCE in 2005 and we are very much interested in sharing our experience with Kazakhstan in the process of preparation for Kazakh presidency and later during the presidency.

So my remarks today will be devoted to this issue, to the future of OSCE and the title, which I chose, was "The Evolving Role of OSCE: from Helsinki to Astana". I have chosen these two names – Helsinki and Astana – on purpose, because I believe that it is very important to compare what this organisation was at the beginning in 1975 when it was created and what it is today. I think the comparison between the initial definition of then CSCE, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe and today’s organisation, OSCE, the Organisation on Security and Co-operation in Europe, shows very big differences that have occurred as a result of transformation of the entire OSCE area in the last 35 years. 35 years are a significant part of history. It’s not a long part of history, but this was a time when many things changed. So I believe that for the proper preparation of the tasks, which are ahead of Kazakhstan and members of OSCE in the year 2010 it is proper to first take a look at what CSCE was at the beginning, back in 1975. Let me try to suggest a very short, very fundamental definition of what that organisation was at the time.

As you know, CSCE was defined originally in terms of three "baskets" - political relations, economic relations and human rights and humanitarian cooperation. These were the three areas in which the original conference worked and where the main content of this organisation was defined. But when one looks at the document, the Helsinki Final Act, which was adopted on the 1 August 1975, one can see that the Helsinki Conference was essentially about the following three factors:

First, territorial status quo in Europe and in the entire area of CSCE. It was one of the basic purposes of the conference to reassure the world that states as they existed at that time will remain, that the territorial integrity will remain intact and that borders will not change. Territorial status quo was essential. Implicitly that meant that the division of Germany into two German states, which had already mutually recognised each other at the time and which were recognised generally and became members of the United Nations, would remain. That was the implicit conclusion of the way territorial status quo was considered at the time. And then the other aspect of this political arrangement of Europe was that military matters have to be managed in a different way than was the case before and that there should be greater emphasis on confidence building. Confidence building at the time primarily meant better cooperation among the military systems, which were large and which were the only really relevant factors of international security. The confidence building process meant that large manoeuvres, movements of military forces had to be notified and that there should be monitoring of military manoeuvres and military movements, that there should be observers to military manoeuvres and instruments of that kind. In other words, confidence building was very much oriented towards the military systems as they existed at the time and which defined the security landscape of that era. So that was the first set of matters, political matters - territorial status quo plus confidence building.

The second set of issues that were defined and treated extensively in the Final Act of the CSCE could be defined as a comprehensive framework for economic cooperation. While on the political side, the idea was to ensure territorial status quo, on the economic side of the picture it was expected that the economic status quo would remain. So if one looks at the Helsinki Final Act today it looks really a very interesting and somewhat alien document. In that document you will find numerous references to trade but trade will be defined particularly through interstate relations. There is no reference to general agreement on tariffs and trade. There is no reference to matters such as most favoured nation clause or free trade areas, customs unions and other instruments of market economy. That was not in the focus. The economic status quo as conceived in 1975 was very much state-centred and state-oriented. That of course is an important feature because if you look into what happened after 1975 we can see that a total transformation of the economic landscape has happened. The Helsinki Final Act actually envisaged a very different world from what actually happened in the years after 1975.

The third basket, devoted to cooperation in humanitarian and other fields, contains also a number of elements, which look a bit awkward today - human contacts, reunification of families, improvement of conditions for tourism, information and intergovernmental cooperation in establishing good conditions for work of journalists, cooperation in the field of culture, education and science. Again, what we see is a very clearly state-centred world, a world, which is based on governments controlling movement of people, controlling the processes of reunification of families. There are extensive references to marriages between citizens of different states in Europe and other aspects, which demonstrated a world, which was very much about governments, about states and about their mutual relations.

That world has obviously changed because since then economies were transformed and the human situation of people in the OSCE area was transformed.

After this brief overview of the Helsinki Final Act of 1 August 1975 I think it is useful to briefly define the nature of change, which followed. That change was profound and had to do with the Helsinki Final Act. That change had to do with the expectations of the people. Helsinki Final Act in its content, in what it says in the written word of the document, is about governments and their cooperation. But it also had a very powerful symbolic function. It suggested change and a possibility that governments might eventually accept a substantial change. That expectation captured imagination of the people, in particular in Eastern Europe. Helsinki Final Act irrespective of its actual nature became a very powerful symbol of a needed change in Europe and that symbolism mobilised vast numbers of people in countries of former socialist world. It is a paradox that the political act from above gave strength to a political movement from beneath. The societies were prepared for change and people wanted change. And they found in the Helsinki Final Act, in a very intergovernmental document, a powerful symbol, which guided that process of change.

If one looks into the few elements in the Helsinki Final Act, which motivated that change, one could see a very interesting feature. The Helsinki Final Act in its seventh principle, which is entitled "Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief", explains the basic code of human rights in a very abstract and general way. Nothing particularly substantive, nothing visibly dangerous, nothing revolutionary. But it has a clause, it has a short sentence, in which the states participating at the conference, signatories of the Helsinki Final Act, confirmed the right of the individual to know and to act upon his rights and duties in this field. So the right to know and the right to act for human rights were accepted in the Helsinki Final Act. And although this is only one line in a document of about 65 pages that line in itself contributed significantly to the change in Europe.

Human rights became a very powerful mobilising idea, much more powerful than most of the drafters of Helsinki Final Act ever imagined. Both in the East and in the West. Diplomats of the East underestimated the revolutionary power of human rights. The leaders on the West underestimated the scope, the far-reaching effects that this phrase will have. But what happened was a process in which people took this right to know and right to act seriously and changed Europe.

The subsequent years have seen very substantial changes. If one asks what were the main features of those changes without going into the entire literature of various documents, which were adopted in the years between 1975 to today, one can clearly identify four areas or four main features of change, four most important changes that have happened in that period of time.

The first among them was the centrality of human rights and democracy. Human rights and democracy became a central feature of the political agenda of Europe. Obviously this item of European political agenda is not monopolised by OSCE. This is not something that happens only in the OSCE. It happens in many other places. As a result of the new importance, on new centrality of human rights and democracy, another organisation, the Council of Europe, gained additional strength and energy. The Council of Europe does not include all the members of OSCE. Countries like Canada, the United States, Kazakhstan and other countries are not members of the Council of Europe. Nevertheless, there is a degree of convergence between OSCE on the one hand and Council of Europe on the other hand. Human rights are placed strongly on the European and OSCE agenda.

Secondly, the growing importance of the issue of minorities. Minorities are a feature of Europe. In Europe one has to pay attention to minorities defined in ethnic and linguistic terms. They are there, they have always been there. But they were not recognised and they were not seen as relevant element in the political landscape of Europe. The Helsinki Final Act started to change that. In the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 itself there are a few very rudimentary provisions about minorities. What happened subsequently was actually very interesting because the issue of minorities became more and more understood as something that has to be dealt with, something that has to be addressed, something that can no longer be ignored. The OSCE itself crated a number of institutions and arrangements to deal with this issue. The most important institution is obviously the High Commissioner on National Minorities who is dealing with this issue in a conflict-prevention mode. That means that the idea that minority issues should not be allowed to degenerate into political conflicts let alone into military conflicts is the central idea and one, which requires permanent treatment. The successive commissioners have developed a whole set of practices, rules, doctrines and I think Europe and the OSCE area as a whole today are much better of in this domain than was the case before.

The third feature is that the economic provisions of the Helsinki Final Act have fallen into oblivion. The economic provisions are no longer relevant. They lost their relevance in 1980s and of course precipitously after the big transformations in the last 20 years since 1989. OSCE has no significant role to play and it shouldn’t be perceived in the future as a framework, in which any really significant economic development can take place.

Finally, fourth and final feature, is the redefinition of the security agenda in the OSCE area. If one looks at the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 one would see that the security landscape of that time was dominated by presence of large armies, which needed to interact and cooperate in new ways. That was the reason why the Helsinki Final Act introduced confidence-building measures, observers at the manoeuvres and other instruments of that kind. But now this has changed also. Threats that exist at present are different. They are largely unrelated to organised military forces. Contemporary threats revolve around phenomena such as terrorism, organised crime, drug trafficking and alike and obviously the security agenda of today is very different from that of the past. This is the fourth and final and the most important feature of the changed landscape of the OSCE today.

The question now - and this is something that I would like to suggest for your reflection and for our discussion - is how do we perceive the challenges ahead of the OSCE and what needs to be done in order to make OSCE a continuously relevant and effective international institution. I think that one has to clearly recognise that in the area of human rights and democracy there is a need for permanent work. One must recognise that with regard to national minorities there is a need for permanent engagement and permanent search for solutions. And one has to recognise that with regard to the security agenda there is a need for, again, redefinition of an approach, which needs to be adequate for the circumstances of today. Let me briefly outline how I see the future in these areas.

First, human rights and democracy. Today OSCE has organised, has been organising this activity largely around one of its main institutions, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which is based in Warsaw and, I’m proud to say, is currently headed by a Slovenian diplomat, our compatriot Janez Lenarèiè. ODIHR is actively involved in electoral assistance and election monitoring and in a set of other activities relating to the strengthening of democratic institutions. This is a very important part of work of OSCE today and for the future.

What do we need in that area, in the area of democratic institutions and human rights? My proposal is that we need first and foremost patience and persistence. What we need is a good understanding of political cultures that exist in the OSCE area and which are different from one country to another, from one region to another. I think we have to learn to be tolerant. We have to learn to understand that electoral systems are different from one country to another, that political traditions are different from one country to another and that in designing a programme of assistance to democratic processes in different countries we have to take into account the political culture of the country in question. I’m saying this in full awareness of the fact that many will not agree. There are people who would say – well, we have international standards, which need to be obeyed. I’m not so sure. I’m not sure whether we have sufficiently precise and sufficiently authoritative standards when it comes to the question of electoral systems. Do we really have standards for implementation of the process of elections? Do we really have internationally agreed standards related to complaint procedures in cases of electoral fraud? Do we have that? I do not think that that is the case. We have a set of practices, we have ideas about what constitutes free and fair elections. But we have to be sensitive to the local circumstances, to the political culture of the country in question and have to develop these standards gradually through practice.

I believe that one of the issues for the future is standard-setting in the area of elections and strengthening of democratic institutions. This standard-setting does not have to be designed in terms of firm "black letter law". It can be designed in terms of, first, recommendations, guiding principles, consolidated good practices and such measures. In other words, we need to take stock of different practices and different experiences that exist and patiently work for an agreement on standards and for improvement in every part of the OSCE area. This is how I see the future in the area of democratic institutions and human rights. Standard-setting is there but it has to be approached carefully.

The second area, minorities. Obviously minorities are something that needs to be looked at continuously. Europe has had a long period of time between the end of World War II and the Helsinki Final Act, in other words, 30 years of neglect for minorities. It was believed that human rights of individuals would take care of minority issues automatically. That obviously did not happen. And we have seen in the last 35 years that international community has to pay attention to the issues of minorities and has to be systematic in that regard.

The big advantage of OSCE is in the fact that it has developed a very good practice of conflict-prevention as a main focus of minority protection. What does conflict-prevention mean in that regard? One doesn’t have to wait for issues of ethnic relations to become politically tense or to show signs of an evolution that leads to a military conflict. One shouldn’t wait that long. One should look into the practices of states and legislation, which is designed to help to manage interethnic relations, legislation, which relates to the use of languages in the public sphere, the use of media and visibility of minorities and their issues in the media. There has to be a set of other instruments of that nature, which helps societies to develop proper harmony or proper balance between different ethnic components. In this context obviously the experience of multiethnic states is particularly relevant. Kazakhstan has a great experience in this area and I think that during its presidency it would be wise if that experience is fully shared with the rest of countries in the OSCE. So I think that one has to look at the issue of minorities from a conflict-prevention point of view. But one has to understand that conflict-prevention means first and foremost creation of legislative and institutional conditions for ethnic balance, for ethnic stability and, to the extent possible, for ethnic harmony.

Finally and most important, the question of security. Here we have a situation, in which new solutions have to be defined. We need a new and different international security architecture. The OSCE area is an important part of the world where this architecture has to function. What should that architecture consist of? Let me propose four elements for that.

First, that architecture should establish new partnerships between a number of regional organisations, which exist already. NATO is one of them, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is another and there are many other organisations. The important task of our era is to make sure that these organisations not only coexist but that they function in a manner, which creates synergies and the best possible security effect. OSCE can be one of the forums where the outcomes from these regional organisations are expressed and where discussions are held and convergence of their policies is stimulated. That does not mean that any of the authority of the organisations in question should be refused. What is needed is a genuine dialogue, genuine sharing of will, of interest and genuine discussion motivated by the need for convergence.

The second element is the ability to find solutions to specific problems or specific crisis situations. In the OSCE area there are a few crisis situations, which have persisted for far too long. Some of them are defined as the "frozen conflicts" of the Caucasus. There has to be an expedited process towards solution of those conflicts. If one takes for example one of them, the oldest one, Nagorno-Karabakh, which started back in 1989, 1990, almost 20 years ago, one should seek to find the solution sooner rather than later. 20 years is a long time and I think that during the presidency of Kazakhstan it would be advisable to strengthen the efforts of the main mechanism for that conflict, the Minsk Group, and to push towards a solution of that conflict. Specific proposals exist. They must be acted upon. If a significant movement in that area is achieved then obviously other beneficial effects will follow. But the demonstrated ability to solve crisis situations is an important condition for success of any process leading to a new security architecture.

The third element is the need to refine and to reinforce international law. International law is an important value in the area of security. Respect for principles of international law, such as non-use of force, territorial integrity of states and other principles remains fundamental. But then there is a need to reconcile certain practices, which find their inspiration in the principles of international law. So, for example, some states would use force to maintain their territorial integrity. There would be groups who would use force to pursuit their agenda of self-determination. These practices have to be measured and have to be reconciled on the basis of the principles of international law. How does one do that? This will be one of the tasks before the OSCE in the year to come. I think that a refinement of the formulation of these principles might be necessary and that is something that could be started by Kazakhstan during its presidency.

And finally and perhaps most importantly, we have to understand that the security in the world is a global phenomenon, that we are talking about global security and that therefore there is a need to support the only global security organisation that we have – the United Nations. There is no solution for global security without the United Nations. The United Nations has to be updated, has to be modernised to better suit the need to solve the problems of security of today. But in order to achieve that UN needs support of regional organisations. It needs organisations such as OSCE, NATO, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, ASEAN, African Union and others. In that regard we have had some experience in the past. I myself participated in preparation of a number of meetings that the UN Secretary-General regularly holds with the executive heads of regional organisations. But these practices are not sufficient. We need more. We need a better coordination, more convergence between the work of regional organisations and that of the United Nations. This is the fourth and final requirement of the security landscape of today and one, which will be on the agenda of the OSCE.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I tried to outline the past, the process of change and some of the ideas for the future. I hope that this identification will help. I would like to see Kazakhstan succeed as President of OSCE. I would like to thank you for your attention and I would like to wish you good luck and good success with your work in the OSCE.