OSCE releases 2010 Annual Report of the Secretary General

The OSCE, the world's largest regional security organization, released its 2010 Annual Report today, 1 April 2011.

The 128-page publication highlights the OSCE's activities during a year that marked the 20^th anniversaries of the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, the Copenhagen and Bonn documents and the 35^th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. It also covers the work of the 2010 Kazakhstan Chairmanship, which culminated in its hosting the Organization’s first Summit in more than a decade and, ultimately, the adoption of the “Astana Commemorative Declaration: Towards a Security Community”.

“The Declaration reaffirms all previous OSCE commitments, starting from the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris for a New Europe in 1990,” writes OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut in his foreword. “Our 56 participating States committed to a ‘free, democratic, common and indivisible Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security community’ and once again put special emphasis on human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

2010 was also a year marked by conflict. The Annual Report details the OSCE’s co-ordinated response to the crisis in Kyrgyzstan. “The OSCE Secretariat, the Centre in Bishkek, the Institutions – the High Commissioner on National Minorities, the Representative on Freedom of the Media and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights – as well as the Parliamentary Assembly pooled efforts that contributed to the stabilization of the situation by bringing it back on constitutional track,” the Secretary General notes.

The Annual Report includes coverage of the activities of the OSCE’s field operations, Institutions, Secretariat units and Parliamentary Assembly, as well as the 2010 Kazakhstan Chairmanship and the Organization’s work with the Asian and Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation and international and regional organizations.

The OSCE Annual Report can be viewed here: http://www.osce.org/sg/76315