Mr. President, Mr. Vice-President, Your Royal Highness, I am speaking today on behalf of and at the request of the Portuguese Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and in that capacity I bring you the best wishes of the new Foreign Minister of Portugal. I would point out that his actual title is Minister for Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Abroad. Think about it as we begin this Conference. He is unable to attend this important event because he has just taken office following the elections in Lisbon. But I am also speaking today as the Deputy Director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which includes questions of migration and freedom of movement in its general mandate under what we call the "human dimension." I would just like to point out that where the IFRC and the ICRC are international organizations, working on an agenda of well known humanitarian principles based on treaty commitments, the OSCE is an intergovernmental organization, bringing together national governments under a series of political commitments. The first of these, of course, was the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which brought together all the countries of Europe -- East and West -- as well as Canada and the United States, to make a series of political commitments to each other in the fields of political-military security, economic security, and the cluster of issues known as "Basket Three," which we now call the "Human Dimension." These include, but are not limited to, traditional human rights concerns, including freedom of speech and association, freedom of religion or belief, freedoms in the political process, et cetera. The first CSCE/OSCE commitments relating to freedom of movement and migration are contained in the Helsinki Final Act and a number of follow-up documents. Most of the original commitments on migration dealt with human contacts and reunification of families. By addressing the issue in this way, in the context of freedom of movement, the CSCE sought to overcome the artificial division of Europe. It can be argued that these principles, a key part of the Helsinki "Basket Three" commitments, played a major role in the transition which changed the Europe of the mid-1970's to the Europe we now see at the start of the Twenty-First Century. But it is important to stress that the development of standards by the CSCE did not stop in 1975, In fact, one of the strengths of the Organization is the fact that the participating States (which now number 55 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union) have not only maintained and reaffirmed their commitments to principles agreed a quarter-century ago, but they have continued to agree on new standards, new commitments. For example, not until the 1990s, after a number of armed conflicts had erupted in the region, have the CSCE/OSCE participating States undertaken commitments dealing explicitly with refugees and displaced persons. In the CSCE Helsinki Document 1992, for example, participating States expressed their `concern over the problem of refugees and displaced persons´ and emphasized `the importance of preventing situations that may result in mass flows of refugees and displaced persons´ and stressed `the need to identify and address the root causes of displacement and involuntary migration´. In addition, participating States recognized `the need for international co-operation in dealing with mass flows of refugees and displaced persons´ and that `displacement is often a result of violations of CSCE commitments, including those relating to the Human Dimension.´ Again, at the 1999 OSCE Istanbul Summit, the Heads of State or Government of the Participating States agreed to `reject any policy of ethnic cleansing or mass expulsion. We reaffirm our commitment to respect the right to seek asylum and to ensure the international protection of refugees as set out in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, as well as to facilitate the voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons in dignity and safety. We will pursue without discrimination the reintegration of refugees and internally displaced persons in their places of origin.´ Special reference was also made to the rights and interests of children, including refugees and internally displaced children. The Office for Free Elections (ODIHR's first denomination) was created after the Paris Ministerial of 1991, and the monitoring of elections is still a core activity of our Office. I recently spent a week in Ukraine as part of the International Election Observation Mission there; others from the Elections Section of the Office will be in France a week from today to assess certain elements of the First Round of France's Presidential Elections. We have other sections and programs dealing with Human Rights Monitoring and reporting, Democratisation, Gender Equality, Trafficking in Persons, support for the Rule of Law, Freedom of Religion or Belief, and relations with NGOs throughout the OSCE region. Building on our mandate under the Final Act and subsequent documents, a two-person unit on Migration and Freedom of Movement was created within the ODIHR after the 1996 OSCE Summit in Lisbon: to assist participating States to meet their OSCE commitments in the areas of migration, freedom of movement and choice of place of residence, and to enhance protection of rights and non-discrimination of various categories of migrants. In co-operation with the governments of the OSCE participating States, other international organizations and NGOs, the ODIHR Migration Unit: Trains relevant state officials (such as border service officials) in international human rights standards; Assists participating States with development of migration legislation, such as laws on civil registration, to ensure that citizens enjoy all rights regardless of their place of residence in the country; Assists participating States in developing legal frameworks to protect the rights of internally displaced persons; Promotes exchange of information and promotion of cross-border co-operation between participating States through focused workshops. Led by our Migration Unit, the ODIHR has recently held a number of meetings on migration and related issues, including a one-day Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on "Migration and Internal Displacement," held in Vienna, Austria in September 2000, a conference on Migration Legislation in Kazakhstan in Astana, in December, 2000, and a three-day workshop on "Cross-Border Cooperation and the Development of Migration Legislation," held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in October 2001. And there will be a follow-up three-day workshop on "Organizational Structures and Data Collection and the Sharing of Migration-Related Information," to be held in Prague, Czech Republic, in early June of this year. As you can see, the issues are very much part of our active dialogue with governments, and we have been gratified at the response we have received from participating States to our ongoing activities in the Migration field. We also work closely with other organizations such as the Council of Europe, the International Organization for Migration,a nd the Anti-Trafficking Task Force of the Stablity Pact for SouthEastern Europe. I would mislead you if I left you with the impression that ODIHR is the only element of the OSCE which is active in the field of migration issues. The High Commissioner for National Minorities deals with the subject in several of the countries where he carries out his confidential missions, and the Representative on Freedom of the Media also addresses the issue where it surfaces in his area of responsibility, for example in the context of "hate speech" and the fight against racism and xenophobia. But it is the OSCE Field Missions which play a major role in dealing with migration issues on the ground. It is impossible to think of the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, without thinking of the active role it has played in working to reintegrate citizens of that country who had fled the country because of the war, whether through our responsibility to ensure that Bosnians in other countries were enabled to vote in their country's elections, or through development of programs to smooth the way for their return to their homes where possible. Similar tasks for part of the mandates for the Missions in Belgrade, in Skopje, in Tirana, in Yerevan and Baku, et cetera. It might be difficult to say whether this part of their mandates falls under the political-military dimension, the economic dimension, or the human dimension, but in my opinion the categories do not matter. What matters is the effect we - and our partner organizations and participating States - can have on the lives of the people and the society of those countries. And that is precisely the place where I believe our mandates intersect, the three dimensions of the OSCE with the humanitarian mandate of the Red Cross movement, and why it made sense for me to be with you today. I hope that you have learned something about the OSCE from my brief remarks; I am certain that I will learn far more about the International Federation and your individual Red Cross societies. And I look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you very much.