The Responsibility to Implement
Mikhail Evstaviev
ODIHR Director
Ambassador Christian
Strohal gives an
interview to Russian
TV journalists
during the Madrid
Ministerial Council,
29 November.
held in Warsaw, more interactive and to allow
civil society to hold governments accountable.
In this way, we contribute to our collective
implementation review, together with our partners both from within the Organization and
from outside. The involvement of civil society is
also a key component of ODIHR’s democratization and human rights programmes.
Democracy as a process
ODIHR’s democratization work, too, has developed stronger focus, in particular on democratic governance and democratic processes.
In response to growing demand by participating States, we have strengthened our capacity
to provide assistance in drafting and amending legislation, including by further developing
legislationline.org, our Internet-based legislative database. In 2007, ODIHR again organized
a series of roundtables and workshops, providing practical assistance in judicial reform, civil
6
Annual Report 2007
registration, political participation of women,
and other related fields.
Elections: the need for follow-up
Election observation work continues to be
ODIHR’s most visible activity, widely recognized in the international community. In 2007,
we fielded over 3,000 election observers and
experts on 17 election missions, ranging from
the Serbian parliamentary elections in January
to the presidential elections in Uzbekistan at
the end of December. In line with our general
policy, we have also increasingly been following developments in longer-established democracies, assessing specific aspects of the electoral
process, for example, during the Swiss parliamentary elections, or following the impact of
newly introduced voting technologies, as we
did in Estonia.
Sadly, ODIHR was unable to observe the
largest electoral event in 2007, the November