Our mandate on arms control

The key document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures is the Vienna Document, which promotes trust and predictability through transparency and verification measures covering the armed forces and major equipment systems.

The Framework for Arms Control agreed in Lisbon in 1996 recognized that arms control, including disarmament and confidence- and security-building, is integral to the OSCE’s comprehensive and co-operative concept of security.

The Vienna Document, the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) and the Open Skies Treaty constitute a web of interlocking and mutually reinforcing arms control obligations and commitments. Together, they aim at enhancing predictability, transparency and military stability and at reducing the risk of a major conflict in Europe. The 1990 CFE Treaty also provides for limitations of major military equipment systems in Europe, which eventually led to a disarmament process in the 1990s.

The 1992 Treaty on Open Skies established a regime of unarmed observation flights over the territories of State Parties.