The Response of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to the Crisis in Kyrgyzstan

The proclaimed function of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is regional security management. Nonetheless, it has never conducted a conventional peacekeeping operation, in spite of incidents of mass violence and instability within its region. This is in large part because regional elites consider state/regime security as paramount and that the SCO's central principle of non-interference takes precedence over intervention on humanitarian grounds. This article investigates the debate within the SCO about the relative salience of non-interference against the need for peacekeeping operations, examining the case of its non-action during the Osh Riots 2010. It concludes that considerations of political reassurance and inter-regime mistrust at a regional level and serious practical limitations in capacity dissuaded the most prominent member states from acting, via the SCO, Collective Security Treaty Organisation or independently, in what was perceived as an internal Kyrgyz affair because it did not directly threaten the security of the other members' regimes.