Annual Trial Monitoring Meeting, 2025

On 25–26 November, ODIHR will host its Annual Trial Monitoring Meeting in Warsaw, bringing together practitioners from OSCE Field Operations and representatives of NGOs from across the OSCE region to share their experiences and perspectives on fair trial rights and trial monitoring activities.

Throughout the meeting, participants will exchange best practices and discuss various challenges in several plenary sessions and breakout groups. In addition to exploring thematic monitoring of cases involving corruption, organized crime, and war crimes, the discussions will focus on lessons from these experiences, best practices and explore various advocacy strategies and cooperation with beneficiaries. ODIHR will also dedicate parts of the meeting to connected areas of monitoring. Among other issues, this year’s meeting will explore cases related to political rights, including electoral rights, freedom of expression, and freedoms of assembly and association.

As in previous years, the meeting will include a small training component delivered by an expert trainer. This year’s training will concentrate on the standards and jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights concerning key political rights—freedom of expression, assembly, and association, as well as electoral rights. Particular attention will be given to how the ECtHR addresses issues of judicial independence and impartiality, and the protection of procedural fair trial guarantees in such cases.