related to the protection of human rights defenders. ODIHR is mandated to assist OSCE participating States to “ensure full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, to abide by the rule of law, to promote principles of democracy and ... to build, strengthen and protect democratic institutions, as well as promote tolerance throughout society” (Helsinki Document, 1992). The guidelines are based on a consultation process conducted with the broad participation of human rights defenders, international experts, partners from other intergovernmental organizations and representatives of civil society, national human rights institutions and OSCE participating States. Following an initial stakeholders’ meeting in June 2013, ODIHR held a series of sub-regional consultation meetings over a twomonth period with human rights defenders from across the OSCE region, with the aim of identifying the key issues arising within diverse regional and country contexts.5 In addition, ODIHR issued an “open call” for written contributions that was circulated widely throughout the region to reach out to civil society more broadly. An advisory group composed of 12 human rights defenders and international experts assisted with reviewing and further developing early drafts of the guidelines. In May 2014, ODIHR held a consultation meeting with participating States to seek their views and input on the advanced and consolidated draft of the document. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ODIHR expresses its thanks for the invaluable contributions of all those who participated in the consultation process. This includes human rights defenders, experts and partners from other international mechanisms working for the enhanced protection of human rights defenders, including the desk officers and staff working with the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights; the Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; the European External Action Service; the Rapporteurship on Human Rights Defenders of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; and colleagues from the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. In particular, ODIHR would like to thank the members of the advisory working group for their expert advice and contributions to this document. Furthermore, ODIHR is grateful to participating States that contributed to the document during the consultation process. 5  Sub-regional consultation meetings included around 110 human rights defenders working in a range of countries on a variety of different human rights issues. Two meetings were held in September 2013. The first included human rights defenders from Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. The second gathered human rights defenders from Belarus, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Two more meetings were held in October 2013. The first of these brought together human rights defenders from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. Representatives from Kosovo also took part. The fourth consultation meeting gathered human rights defenders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. xii Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders