APPENDIX 2: OSCE MC and PC Decisions and Action Plans with a Focus on
Police-Related Activities
Taskings on police-related issues are contained in OSCE Summit Decisions as well as in the
growing list of Decisions of the Ministerial Council and the Permanent Council, including a
number of OSCE Action Plans.
The Charter for European Security adopted by the Istanbul Summit Meeting (1999)
represents the platform for the OSCE involvement in policing. It contains the commitment of
the OSCE participating States to enhance the OSCE’s role in civilian police-related activities
as an integral part of the Organization'
s efforts in conflict prevention, crisis management and
post-conflict rehabilitation. Such activities may comprise: (1) police monitoring, including to
prevent police from discriminating due to religious and ethnic identity; (2) police training,
which could, inter alia, aim to improve the operational and tactical capabilities of local police
services and reform paramilitary forces, provide new and modern policing skills, such as
community policing, and anti-drug, anti-corruption and anti-terrorist capacities, create a
police service with a multi-ethnic and/or multi-religious composition that can enjoy the
confidence of the entire population; and (3) promoting respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms in general.
The Ninth Ministerial Council in Bucharest (2001) declared the OSCE’s decision to increase
and promote co-operation among participating States in countering new security challenges,
including by providing advice or arranging for the provision of expert advice on requirements
for effective policing (needs assessments) and how to meet them, and encouraging where
appropriate the exchange of information among and between participating States regarding
lessons learned and best policing practices in countering these new security challenges.
The Bucharest Plan of Action for Combating Terrorism (2001), adopted on the same
occasion as the above Decision on police-related activities, recognized the need to assist
participating States, on their request, through measures to combat trafficking in human
beings, drugs and small arms and light weapons, in accordance with relevant Permanent
Council decisions. This assistance could also include: provision of advice and assistance on
restructuring and/or reconstruction of police services; monitoring and training of existing
police services, including human rights training; and capacity building, including support for
integrated or multi-ethnic police services. To this end, the plan of action acknowledged the
requirement for reinforcing existing police-related activities in conflict prevention, crisis
management and post-conflict rehabilitation.
In its Decision No. 448 (2001), the Permanent Council decided to establish the seconded
post of Senior Police Adviser in the OSCE Secretariat.
In the Declaration on Trafficking in Human Beings adopted by the Tenth Ministerial Council
of the OSCE (Porto 2002), its members called on participating States to enhance
international co-operation in combating criminal acts such as trafficking in drugs and arms,
as well as smuggling of migrants. They emphasized the need to include in this co-operation
international law enforcement bodies such as Europol and Interpol, as well as the Southeast
European Co-operative Initiative (SECI), with a view to investigating and prosecuting those
responsible for trafficking in human beings in accordance with domestic law and, where
applicable, international obligations. In this regard, they also asked the Senior Police Adviser
to devote increased attention to the fight against trafficking in human beings.
This tasking was further detailed in the OSCE Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human
Beings, which requested the SPMU to further promote the concept of community policing
and facilitate the exchange of information between participating States on best practices to
be used by relevant investigating units to check the possibly criminal and trafficking-related
origin of suspicious assets. The SPMU was also tasked to continue developing training
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