COPENHAGEN, 4 August 2015 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Secretary General Spencer Oliver discussed the 40th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act and the current state of the OSCE at an event hosted by the Danish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights on 1 August.

“At this milestone, it is important to take stock of the OSCE’s past, present and future. We recall the profound importance of the Final Act and the Helsinki Process, which ensured that human rights was a central component of the foreign policy of every nation,” Oliver said at the Copenhagen event, which was held four decades to the day since the OSCE’s founding document was signed in the Finnish capital.

“Since 1975, there have been many OSCE anniversaries, but I can say in complete earnestness that this anniversary of the Final Act comes at one of the most critical junctures in the Organization’s history. In short, the OSCE faces a crisis moment, for the 40th anniversary has arrived at a time when world events and violations of the Helsinki Final Act do not merely present a challenge, but threaten to destroy our Organization and make this the ‘final act’ of the Helsinki Final Act,” he said.

The OSCE PA Secretary General also presented the Assembly’s Helsinki +40 Project, a series of high-level seminars at think-tanks in six countries that has generated wide-ranging proposals for OSCE reform. The Project’s Final Report is available here. 

OSCE parliamentarians passed a Resolution containing many of the Final Report’s recommendations at the Assembly’s recent Annual Session in Helsinki. 

The event on 1 August was also addressed by Karsten Fledelius, a lecturer at Copenhagen University and the Chair of the Danish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. Others in attendance included Committee Member and former PACE Rapporteur for Ukraine Hanne Severinsen, a representative of the Danish Foreign Ministry and several diplomats.

The Committee was established in 1985 as part of the international movement inspired by the Helsinki Final Act.