Voting in the General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions.BELGRADE, 8 July 2011 – The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly human rights committee today voted to call for a greater civil society role within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, often considered Europe’s top human rights watchdog.

The resolution sponsored by Matteo Mecacci of Italy calls on the OSCE to suspend its consensus decision-making process and use its “consensus minus one” procedure in cases of “clear, gross and uncorrected violations of OSCE commitments.”

"In the wake of such flagrant violations as we continue to see in Belarus where demonstrators are being arrested by the hundreds for simply clapping their hands, we must ask ourselves: if we don’t use the tools we have now to act, when will we ever use them,” said Mecacci, rapporteur of the Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions.

A More Effective OSCE through transparency

The resolution, expected to pass Sunday in the full plenary session, would call for the OSCE’s main diplomatic forum, the Permanent Council, to hold bi-weekly meetings to consider human rights issues.

The meetings would have to include civil society representatives and be open to the public and media. The Permanent Council, comprised of ambassadors from the 56 participating States, meets on a weekly basis to consider OSCE business, normally behind closed doors without media access.

“For decades we at the OSCE have carried the torch for basic freedoms, but now we must go a step further to ensure our diplomatic processes more regularly hear from civil society representatives, the voices too often silenced in many of our countries,” said Mecacci.