Vienna Declaration and Civil Society Recommendations to the Participants of the OSCE Ministerial Council Meeting in Vienna

03.12.2017

The Civic Solidarity Platform convened the 2017 OSCE Parallel Civil Society Conference in Vienna on 5-6 December, building upon the tradition of OSCE parallel civil society conferences in Astana in 2010, Vilnius in 2011, Dublin in 2012, Kiev in 2013, Basel in 2014, Belgrade in 2015, and Hamburg in 2016. At the conference, activists and experts from Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the USA discussed and adopted the Outcome Documents of the conference, developed by the Civic Solidarity Platform. The Outcome Documents include the Vienna Declaration “Preventing security measures from eclipsing human rights and the rule of law” and Civil Society Recommendations to Participants of the Ministerial Council Meeting in Vienna. Some of the chapters in the Recommendations are based on the results of OSCE civil society expert workshops and round table discussions, held in 2017.

The Outcome Documents are addressed to the governments of the OSCE participating States that will be gathering in Vienna for this year’s meeting of the Ministerial Council, as well as to all OSCE political bodies and institutions, including the current and the incoming Chairmanships, Secretary General, the Human Dimension Committee, ODIHR, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE Secretariat, and the OSCE eld missions.

We look forward to reaction from all interested stakeholders. While some of our recommendations may be implemented immediately, others relate to systemic problems and will require consistent effort over a longer period of time. We express our commitment as civil society actors to continue to actively engage in the work of OSCE in the spirit of the Helsinki Principles and our determination to contribute to the full realization of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law throughout the OSCE region.

Recommendations: recomendations_vienna_2017_3.12.pdf