The HISTORY OF THE OSCE: From Cold War Security Conference of 1973 to its 21st Century Search for Identity

11 Nov 2013

As the overall introduction to this dossier points out, this part is indeed about history and context. So, the OSCE, which currently has 57 members, is indeed the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. It has its roots in the 1973 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), which convened in Helsinki, Finland on 3 July 1973.

The 35 states that participated in the conference subsequently began to define the guiding principles they would live by and the security-related areas they would focus on. This three-stage process became known as the ‘Helsinki process’, which concluded with the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in August 1975. A series of follow-up meetings then followed which specifically focused on how to implement the Final Act’s principles and provisions in effective ways.

All this hard work, however, then had to adjust to a monumental historical shift – i.e., the end of the Soviet Union. The CSCE had no choice but to change and adapt, which it did. The following links and source documents thus provide a useful history lesson. A lesson which starts with the creation of the Helsinki process, progresses to the post-Cold War ‘Charter of Paris for a New Europe’ and concludes with the OSCE’s continued search for relevance in the 21^st century.

The Cold War Era

The Helsinki Accords
The Belgrade Meeting's external pageConcluding Document
The Madrid Meeting's external pageConcluding Document
The Vienna Meeting's external pageConcluding Document
The Evolution of Cooperative Securityfrom 1973-1994

The Post-Cold War Period:

Building Security in Post-Cold War Eurasia
Ethnopolitical Conflicts in Eastern Europe and the OSCE: An Interim Appraisal
OSCE 2000 - A Civilian Peace Policy for Europe (a Symposium)
The Paris Summit: The Charter of Paris for a New Europe
The Lisbon Summit's external pageDocument

The 21^st Century