OSCE Court’s Vice-President Erkki Kourula addresses the Permanent Council

On 8 June, Judge Erkki Kourula, Vice-President of the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, addressed the Permanent Council, reporting on the Court’s activities in the past year. He reminded that the OSCE Court, based on a treaty concluded within the OSCE, should not be considered only as a theoretical example of legal idealism but also as a mechanism based on flexible models to achieve practical results.

Vice-President Kourula underlined that the Court was founded on Principle V relating to the peaceful settlement of disputes of the Helsinki Final Act, as part of the comprehensive set of principles, including  refraining from the threat or use of force, the inviolability of frontiers and the territorial integrity of States, equal rights and self-determination of peoples and the fulfilment in good faith of obligations under international law, not to mention respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. He first appealed to the States that are parties of the 1992 Stockholm Convention and encouraged them to resort to mechanisms provided by the Convention for settling disputes at an early stage before they become more serious conflicts. Kourula also invited OSCE participating States to accede to the Convention to confirm their commitment to promote dispute settlement in a peaceful manner.

“What is called for is the political will of States parties and the OSCE institutions to resort to the Court’s mechanisms to promote peace and justice on our continent. A starting point for many participating States is to accede to the Stockholm Convention. We venture to suggest that the volatile situation in Europe underlines the need to maintain treaty-based mechanisms. The Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE is one of such mechanisms,” he concluded.