The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has been engaging in mediation activities since its creation in the early 1990s. Despite its rather rigid and conventional organisational structure (the OSCE has 56 participating states from Europe, Central Asia and North America), the regional body has sought to improve its institutional and operational capacities in response to demands to become more effective in bringing about peace, particularly with regard to the protracted conflicts that have resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union: Nagorno-Karabakh, Moldova/Transdniestria and the Georgian conflicts.
Although the necessity to bolster the OSCE’s efforts and capacities throughout the conflict cycle was clearly recognized only in 2009 after the discussion generated by the Corfu process under the aegis of the Greek chairmanship77, the OSCE participating states have on several occasions expressed their commitment to resolve conflicts by peaceful means78, and since 1992 have developed provisions on early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and conflict resolution. In fact, the first institutional response to the increasingly unstable situation resulted from the post-Cold War territorial rearrangement, the establishment of the Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) and the autonomous High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM).
The CPC is a ‘mediation support’ type of structure located in the OSCE secretariat. It represents a unique model of interaction between thematic and geographical units and was set in place to support the Chairman-in-Office and other OSCE bodies in the fields of early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. In order to respond to one of the most acute limitations of the organisation (the inertia generated by the recurrent lack of significant political will by the member states to intervene in a given conflict), the HCNM was created with the mandate to identify and seek early resolution of ethnic tensions that might endanger peace, stability or friendly relations between OSCE participating states. In fact, the High Commissioner has the possibility to react preventively
77 Ministerial declaration on the OSCE Corfu process: Reconfirm-Review-Reinvigorate Security and Co-operation from Vancouver to Vladivostok. Available at: http://www.osce.
org/cio/40689.
without a political consensus for his intervention or an invitation from a host country. Unfortunately, even this quiet mediation solution was found wanting when challenged by inter-state affairs and other modern conflict dynamics and systems.
Regardless of the mediation roles covered by the above-mentioned institutions, the primary mediation assignments in the OSCE are undertaken by the Chairman-in-Office through appointed Personal or Special Representatives and Envoys. Secondary mediation responsibilities lie with the Secretary-General, the Director of the CPC as well as OSCE field missions. The efficiency of this system has often been criticized due to the annual rotation of Special Representatives and the consecutive change of staff that is considered to hinder the continuity and retention of institutional memory in processes related to dialogue facilitation and/or mediation. Considering the fact that the OSCE does not have enough financial resources to outsource mediation services (as in the case of the EU), the organisation is bound to rely almost exclusively on internal resources. Moreover, without a proper mediation support mechanism in place, every Chairmanship depends heavily on its national resources that are called upon to act on an ad-hoc and short-term basis. In conducting concrete mediation in complex peace processes, all of these factors translate into a deficiency in operability and coherent engagement of the OSCE, which fails to fulfil its full potential. Consequently, its functions are being undertaken by other regional organisations such as the EU or the Council of Europe.79
During the recent analysis of the OSCE mediation capacities, it has been noted that ‘after decades of uninterrupted engagement in mediating between conflicting parties in the Western Balkans, the South Caucasus and Moldova, current OSCE mediation services remind one more of an old-fashioned, though well-equipped and eye-catching, steam locomotive that is pulling behind it coaches of enormous experience and political weight. However, the prospects of ever reaching its destinations have become, in the meantime, ambiguous, as the cargo to be delivered has aged and can no longer meet the needs of the end-users.’80
79 Interview with OSCE officer, Chisinau, September 2011.
80 Expert Meeting within the Framework of the Conflict Cycle – V to V Dialogue “Strengthening the Mediation – Support capacity within the OSCE” Vienna, 12 July 2011, Presentation by Alexandros Katsanis, Counsellor Expert / Senior Advisor Permanent Mission of Greece to the
Conclusions
Regional organisations have played an increasingly important role in mediating conflicts in their respective regions. Despite the fact that many of the organisations have only recently started to develop their capacities in mediation and that many of these organisations, such as the AU and ECOWAS, operate in extremely challenging and conflict-prone environments, their track record in supporting the resolution of the conflicts in their regions is impressive. If these organisations had not existed and been consistently engaged, many of the conflicts would not have been resolved at all. In addition to the states and non-state actors, the regional organisations provide a prominent building block of the new peace and security architecture in solving today’s multidimensional and regional conflicts. If well-equipped, the regional organisations have the potential to address complex conflict dynamics and can start focusing not only on a reactive response, but also on designing proactive strategies that would tackle all the conflict cycle phases.