ODIHR Director: OSCE’s early crisis response must include human rights

The OSCE’s early response to emerging conflicts must include a human rights track next to conventional political efforts if human rights violations are at the root of a crisis, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Ambassador Janez Lenarčič, said at a meeting on enhancing the Organization’s early response capacities in Vienna on 20 September 2011.

“When a [conflict] situation erupts, our innovative multi-dimensional approach to security challenges sometimes quickly shrinks into a uni-dimensional, traditional politico-military track,” Lenarčič said.

As a result, there is a risk of losing sight of the “complex inter-linkages and causalities how a particular crisis has built up, and the role of long-standing human rights grievances in this development,” he added.

Lenarčič suggested to make better use of the Organization’s human rights monitoring capacity as an early warning tool: “I am fully convinced that it would be beneficial for the image and the overall role of the OSCE if it were more inclined to automatically consider the use of resources that are there – institutions, missions on the ground – to genuinely apply a comprehensive approach to security, in all phases of the conflict cycle, early response included, rather than to blank out this dimension, for one or the other reason.”

He also reiterated his proposal to enhance the existing system of peer review among participating States with a mechanism allowing for the commissioning of impartial assessments by OSCE institutions.

It is up to the participating States and the Organization’s structures to make use of existing capacities, Lenarčič said: “If we [do] not, we risk that our unique machinery will rust, leaving us with the role of a hapless bystander who watches from a distance how other organizations step up to the task.”