THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE
Wang Hong Student ID ??/span>s06111
Law School
Research Paper Supervisor :Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China
2006-2006 Academic Year
With 56 participating states from Europe, central Asia and North America, the organization for security and co-operation in Europe (OSCE) forms the largest region security organization in the world. All its members enjoy the equal status, and decisions are made by consensus. OSCE traces its origins in the early of 1970s, when the conference on security and co-operation in Europe (CSCE) was created .The CSCE serves as a multilateral forum for dialogue and negotiation between west and east. Then the CSCE reaches agreement on the Helsinki Final Act, which was signed on 1 August 1975.This document contained a number of key commitments on politico-military, economic and environmental and human rights issues. Until 1990, the CSCE played mainly as a series of meetings and conferences. However, with the end of Cold War, the Paris summit of November 1990 set the CSCE on a new course. It tried to manage the historic change taking place in Europe, and responding to the new challenges of the past-cold War period, which led to its permanent institutions and operational capabilities. So the name was Changes from the CSCE to the OSCE by a decision of the Budapest summit of heads of state or Government in December 1990.[??/span>]
Its duties
It plays an important role in instrument of conflict prevention, crisis management and also deals with three dimensions of security, including the political-military, the economic and environmental and human dimension. The OSCE has many duties related to the security. That means it has a broad concept of security, including arms control, national minorities, democratization and counter-terrorism. It also deals equally with human rights.
This paper intends to explain the Human Rights issues in one of European significant international bodies, the OSCE. Indeed, the OSCE has become a significant Organization dealing with human rights questions. It places the protection of human rights at the center of the OSCE broad concept of security. Therefore, this paper can offer a unique insight into the situation of the human rights development at least in Europe.
The OSCE deals with human rights
The OSCE regards protection the human rights and improvement the conditions of human rights in the member states as its important tasks. The OSCE human rights activities focus on prevention torture and trafficking in persons, it also provides training and education in the area of human rights. In addition, the OSCE monitors and reports on the human rights situation in each of its 56 participating states, particularly in the areas of freedom of assembly and association, the right to liberty and to a fair trial, and in the use of the death penalty. The OSCE regards the phrase “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” as one of its 10 guiding principles. The OSCE does its duty with its whole heart to implement its guide principles.
In order to protect the human rights, the OSCE found a special institution, ODIHR (the office for democratic institutions and human rights), deals with human rights. In the field of protecting and promoting human rights, the ODIHR carries two major functions. The first one is monitoring and reporting on the situation implement in each participating state. In addition, the ODIHR organizes several major meetings every year that are related to particular human-rights topics.
The OSCE has many activities related to protection of human rights. However, the following just focus on the ODIHR fighting against human trafficking in Eastern Europe, particularly in Ukraine, to explain its activities dealing with the human rights protection.
Human trafficking is a serious crime that violates human rights and poses a threat to human security in our societies. It has become one of the most complex issues in Eastern Europe, particularly in Ukraine. Every year, thousands of women, children and men are trafficked. Among them, many are young women and girls who were sold into sexual service. Eastern Europe is a region of origin and of transit for victims of trafficking.
Why the human trafficking happened high frequency in this region. There are three reasons can explain this phenomenon.
1. Have few employment opportunities.
The local people have few employment opportunities in the countries of Eastern Europe. In most case, traffickers tend to target young women and girls in countries with weak economic and few opportunities for women to support themselves.
2. The victims have limited awareness of risks.
Some women don’t realize the risk of going abroad for work. They trust the agent easily, which promise them to offer a legitimate and salary rich job in foreign counties. As a result, women are recruited for the sex industry. These women have little possibilities to escape, as they often fear local authorities and deportation. Furthermore, women are forced to surrender their travel documents to their traffickers. So they don’t have the legal documents to go outside. And they are exploited by their traffickers.
3. Little risk and high profits.
Little risk and high profits are factors that make trafficking in human beings a serious business for organized crime across Europe. It can make use of already established smuggling of persons. After the victims arrived in the country of destination, they face the harsh working conditions, Ukrainian women, freed in a rescue operation with the assistance of ODIHR, and said they were forced to service clients from 9.00p.m to 5.00 a.m. Every night they had to sleep on the floor in the cellar, and only received a meal of one hamburger a day.[??/span>]
The traffickers exploit them heavily and earn a lot of money from them. However, the countries in the Eastern Europe don’t have an effective law to punish them. Most always, the traffickers go unpunished. This can be greatly foster the crime high frequency. They all have proven inadequate to prevent trafficking or to protect the human rights of trafficking persons.
To tackle the growing problem of trafficking in human beings, the OSCE launched a lot of activities dealing with the issue of trafficking in human being.
1. Establishment of hotline service.[??/span>]
The victims have limited awareness of risks .that means In accordance with the lacking of information for going abroad for work, the OSCE establishes the hotline service in Ukraine, in 2002. Now many Eastern Europe countries have established this projection with the help of the OSCE. The service provides information and support for anyone who plans to go abroad for work. Since the establishment of the hotlines, people can get the right information on obtaining the necessary documents, including visa, residence and work permits and other matters related to destination countries. And know the right abroad as well as at home. The OSCE conducts the training courses for hotline consultants from Ukraine to equip the consultants with the practical skills they need on the job.
2. Support to draft and implement the effective anti-trafficking law.
The problem of trafficking in human beings has become more and more serious in the Eastern Europe. We have analyzed the cause of the problem in the former passage. One of the reasons is that they don’t have an effective anti-trafficking law. That makes the traffickers easily go punished. The anti-trafficking law plays an important role in protection of the victims and prosecution of traffickers. The ODIHR gives these countries full supports in drafting the law. It dispatches many law experts and judges who have much experience on the trafficking cases, and provides recommendations on how to draft an effective law. it also sends the expert to judicial system to help the judges to manage the trafficking case when the law implement.
3. Co-operation with other organizations.
Now the OSCE not only focus on legal assistance as before, but also pay more attention to co-operation with other organizations, such as United Nations, Europe Union. Trafficking in human beings is one of the most pressing and complex issues in the world. Many counties face this problem. The OSCE therefore aims to establish a network with other organization to share experience, exchange the practice and co-operation efforts. The OSCE established a projection with the UN to protect the victims, which called rescue operation to make sure the return of the trafficked victims are safe. Some counties regard the persons as the “illegal migrants” without access to protection and assistance. The projection can help the countries to identification the trafficked persons.[??/span>]
What can the OSCE do for a country or a place on improving the human rights conditions? This paper intends to explain improvement of human rights in Kosovo with the aid of the OSCE.
1. The situation of human rights in Kosovo ten years ago[??/span>]
The Special Reporters of the Commission on Human Rights on the situation in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, describe the continuing grave human rights situation in Kosovo, including police brutality, lack of fair trial procedures for political detainees, killings resulting from such violence, arbitrary searches and arrests, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, the deliberate maltreatment, persecution and imprisonment of political and human rights activists, the mass dismissals of civil servants and discrimination against pupils and teachers, acts that are [...]
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