EHF and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is the world's largest regional security organization whose 55 participating States span the geographical area from Vancouver to Vladivostok. It has as one of its three main activities the protection of democracy and human rights. (More detail of the background to the organisation is included in the report of the 2005 meeting.

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) is based in Warsaw, where it holds a two-week annual conference - the ‘Human Dimension Implementation Meeting’ (HDIM) - where representatives of governments and civil society review both the implementation of the OSCE's Human Dimension commitments and the procedures and mechanisms for monitoring and enhancing compliance with these commitments. OSCE meetings are attended by representatives of the governments of its member states (which include the USA and Canada, while various other non-European countries attend as observers), of a hundred or more NGOs - non-governmental organisations - and of international organisations such as the Council of Europe.

Since 2005 the EHF has attended these annual conferences for relevant sessions and has taken an active part. We have also contributed to other OSCE events and activities, as detailed below. In June 2009 we compiled a list of the recommendations we had submitted over the years, together with the invitations to our side-meetings at OSCE conferences.

Vera Pegna, who was a board member of EHF until 2006, is our main representative with OSCE.

2009 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

2009 Special Human Dimension Implementation Meeting on Freedom of Religion or Belief (Vienna, 9-10 July 2009)

2008 Mediterranean Seminar (Amman, 27-28 October 2008)

2008 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Proposal for Side Meeting at 2008 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Recommendation to the 2007 Mediterranean Seminar (Tel Aviv, 18-19 December 2007)