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.OSCE HCNM Mandate, at http://www.osce.org/hcnm/107878. Retrieved 13 April 2016 The Organisation consists of 57 participating States across North America, Europe and Asia.OSCE Participating States, at http://www.osce.org/states . Retrieved 13 April 2016 The establishment of the HCNM is generally considered to be a “success story”Ghebali, V-Y. (2009) The High Commissioner on National Minorities after 15 Years: Achievements, Challenges and Promises. Security and Human Rights: 20(2), 111 at 111 and a useful instrument of conflict prevention.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 15
History The creation of the office of HCNM was directly related to the political circumstances at the beginning of the 1990s.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 15 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.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 16 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.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 17 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.
Opposition to the proposal
Many concerns were raised in regards to the model put forward by the Netherlands.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 17 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.Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ‘CSCE Helsinki Document 1992: The Challenges of Change’. Part II, paragraph 5(c), at http://www.osce.org/mc/39530?download=true 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.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 18 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.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 19 As a result, the HCNM was prohibited from considering ‘national minority issues in situations involving organized acts of terrorism’.Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ‘CSCE Helsinki Document 1992: The Challenges of Change’. Part II, paragraph 5(b), at http://www.osce.org/mc/39530?download=true 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’.Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ‘CSCE Helsinki Document 1992: The Challenges of Change’. Part II, paragraph 25, at http://www.osce.org/mc/39530?download=true In some instances this clause has become a way for states to ban the HCNM from interfering with their minority problems.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 19
Ambiguity in the mandate 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.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 18
The first High Commissioner, Max van der Stoel, focused on clarifying and defining his mandate.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 21 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.Bloed, A. (2013) The High Commissioner on National Minorities: Origins and Background. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 15 at 22 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.Zellner, W. (2013) Working without Sanctions: Factors Contributing to the (Relative) Effectiveness of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 25 at 29 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,Confoerence for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ‘Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE’ 1990, paragraph 32, at http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/14304?download=true which emphasised that being a part of a national minority was a person's individual choice.Zellner, W. (2013) Working without Sanctions: Factors Contributing to the (Relative) Effectiveness of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 25 at 29 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.Zellner, W. (2013) Working without Sanctions: Factors Contributing to the (Relative) Effectiveness of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 25 at 29 In many cases a national minority will be a majority in certain countries or regions.
Function The main role of the HCNM is to identify and address tensions involving national minorities which could develop into a conflict.OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, at http://www.osce.org/hcnm. Retrieved 13 April 2016 This involves “early warning” of potential conflict followed by “early action” to dissolve tensions.Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ‘CSCE Helsinki Document 1992: The Challenges of Change’. Part II, paragraph 3, at http://www.osce.org/mc/39530?download=true 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’.Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ‘CSCE Helsinki Document 1992: The Challenges of Change’. Part II, paragraph 11(b), at http://www.osce.org/mc/39530?download=true 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.Zellner, W. (2013) Working without Sanctions: Factors Contributing to the (Relative) Effectiveness of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe: 12(3), 25 at 17 This involves mediation as well as the introduction of sustainable solutions.