The OSCE human dimension commitments are politically binding, i.e., they are not treaty obligations. This means that there is no ratification process and that the commitments are immediately binding on all participating States from the moment they are adopted. As they are not legally binding, there is no legal enforcement mechanism such as an international court, but there are instead a number of other options at the OSCE’s disposal, which are described later in this handbook. 2.1 OSCE COMMITMENTS AND OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS The founding document of the OSCE (then the CSCE), the Helsinki Final Act, acknowledges as one of its 10 guiding principles the “respect for human rights and freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief ”. Since the creation of that document in 1975, a long series of OSCE meetings, documents, and summits has expanded and set out in substantial detail an increasingly broad range of human dimension commitments. These include commitments on civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights; rule of law; democracy; tolerance and non-discrimination; national minorities and indigenous persons; migration; and international humanitarian law. The number of issues covered by these commitments continues to expand. For example, the Vienna Ministerial Council in 2000 endorsed the OSCE’s first extended set of commitments against trafficking in human beings, which, notably, also explicitly recognized the role the OSCE can play in resolving individual cases of human rights violations related to trafficking.10 In addition, the OSCE has incorporated by reference a number of other human rights standards into its commitments. Various OSCE documents have endorsed or urged the participating States to consider signing and ratifying the following international human rights documents:11     The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW);  The UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT);  The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); 10 Decision 1 of the Vienna 2000 Ministerial Council enhanced the OSCE’s efforts to combat trafficking in human beings. 11 The texts of UN documents and treaties relating to human rights are available on the website of the UN High Commis- sioner for Human Rights at http://www.unhchr.ch. The European conventions can be found on the Council of Europe website at http://www.coe.int. The Geneva Conventions are on the website of the International Committee of the Red Cross at http://www.icrc.org. 25 2