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The office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) is charged with identifying and seeking early resolution of ethnic tension that might endanger peace, stabil…
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High Commissioner on National Minorities
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The office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) is charged with identifying and seeking early resolution of ethnic tension that might endanger peace, stability or friendly relations between and within the participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The office was created on 8 July 1992, by the Helsinki Summit Meeting of the Conference o…
The office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) is charged with identifying and seeking early resolution of ethnic tension that might endanger peace, stability or friendly relations between and within the participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The office was created on 8 July 1992, by the Helsinki Summit Meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), now known as the (OSCE), The HCNM focuses on the OSCE area and will alert the Organisation where a situation has the potential to develop into a conflict. The Organisation consists of 57 participating States across North America, Europe and Asia. The establishment of the HCNM is generally considered to be a “success story” and a useful instrument of conflict prevention.
The creation of the office of HCNM was directly related to the political circumstances at the beginning of the 1990s. The Yugoslav Wars were ethnic conflicts that broke out after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and of Communism, and which eventually resulted in the break up of the country. Efforts of the CSCE, European Union and United Nations failed to bring peace. The frustration at being unable to prevent such a devastating human tragedy led to the Netherlands government proposing the post of the HCNM. This office would aim to prevent conflicts based on tensions with ethnic minorities. In regards to the Yugoslav tragedy, international efforts were deemed to have failed because of the limited knowledge of the international mediators of the ethnic situation. This often meant that tensions escalated because the international community did not fully understand the issues at play. Further, any international aid that was provided came too late. It was recognised that such tensions should be identified and addressed as early as possible in order to prevent escalation into endless conflict. The Yugoslav conflict also made clear that many conflicts around the world were rooted in tensions involving national minorities. It was against this background that the proposal for the office of the HCNM was presented.
Many concerns were raised in regards to the model put forward by the Netherlands. As a result, several major restrictions to the HCNM's role were implemented into the mandate.
States disagreed on whether the rights of national minorities were individual or group rights. Ultimately, there was a clear exclusion of individual cases through paragraph 5(c) of the HCNM mandate. This prohibits the High Commissioner from considering “violations of CSCE commitments with regard to an individual person belonging to a national minority”. Many states feared that the HCNM would become a sort of "ombudsman" for national minorities. The aim of the office was not to create a new human rights instrument, but to create a conflict prevention tool. This was emphasised in the title of the office: the High Commissioner on National Minorities, not for National Minorities.
Many states were also highly opposed to involvement by the HCNM in cases of terrorism. As a result, the HCNM was prohibited from considering ‘national minority issues in situations involving organized acts of terrorism’. The international community further decided that the HCNM should not be able to ‘communicate with and (...) acknowledge communications from any person or organization which practices or publicly condones terrorism or violence’. In some instances this clause has become a way for states to ban the HCNM from interfering with their minority problems.
The HCNM's mandate as defined at the Helsinki Summit meeting in 1992 contained many ambiguities, the most significant of which is the definition of “national minorities”. No clear guidance was given in the mandate on how to interpret this term. This was largely because the CSCE participating states could not come to an agreement on the definition of "national minorities", and therefore opted to provide no definition at all.
The first High Commissioner, Max van der Stoel, focused on clarifying and defining his mandate. He did this by consulting many experts on minority rights and international law, and thereby developing a set of guidelines and practices for overcoming the ambiguities in the mandate. Through the broadly defined mandate, he was able to approach the role in the best way he saw fit. The approach taken by van der Stoel came to define how his successors approached the role too. His definition of “national minorities” had three different elements. Firstly, a national minority could be distinguished from the rest of society through linguistic, ethnic or cultural characteristics. Secondly, that minority strived to protect and strengthen those characteristics which made up its identity. Finally, he referenced paragraph 32 of the 1990 CSCE Copenhagen Document, which emphasised that being a part of a national minority was a person's individual choice. In the approach taken by van der Stoel and his successors, there is no requirement that a national minority be a numerical minority in the population. In many cases a national minority will be a majority in certain countries or regions.
The main role of the HCNM is to identify and address tensions involving national minorities which could develop into a conflict. This involves “early warning” of potential conflict followed by “early action” to dissolve tensions. The mandate authorises the HCNM to assess ‘the role of the parties directly concerned, the nature of the tensions and recent developments therein and, where possible, the potential consequences for peace and stability within the OSCE area’. Her most important role is not necessarily to completely resolve all potential conflicts, but rather to manage them in a way that the tension between groups does not escalate but declines. This involves mediation as well as the introduction of sustainable solutions.
Ultimately, the role of the High Commissioner is one of preventative diplomac
Source: High Commissioner on National Minorities (CC BY-SA)
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