I. Implementation of Existing Commitments A. The OSCE’s commitments in the human dimension 1. The OSCE is referred to as a community of values. These values are expressed in a number of commitments that are not formally legal, but nevertheless binding, obligations. They have been elaborated and reconfirmed since the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, but in particular during the decade following the historic changes of 1989-1990 in Europe. Although the protection and promotion of human rights are one of the fundamental purposes of the United Nations, the Helsinki Final Act was the first international document to explicitly recognize that their protection is a matter of international concern. 2. Since 1975, the normative framework developed by the OSCE for the entire region has been expanded and deepened considerably. In 1990 and 1991, OSCE participating States committed themselves to a far-reaching set of detailed standards on the protection of human rights that included elements pertaining to democratic elections, democratic governance, and the rule of law. In traditional human rights treaties, individual (or group) rights are formulated, and the state party is obliged to respect and/or guarantee those rights. How to implement these obligations, however, is most often left to the discretion of the States. The OSCE’s human dimension goes much further by linking human rights with the institutional and political system of a State. In essence, OSCE States have agreed through their human dimension commitments that pluralistic democracy based on the rule of law is the only system of government able to guarantee human rights effectively. 3. At the 1990 Copenhagen Conference on the Human Dimension, States laid the groundwork for what would become the fundamental rule book for the entire OSCE hemisphere, the acquis of the developed democracies in the world. It is worth recalling that OSCE commitments are equally binding for, and need to be implemented by, all participating States, including those in socio-economic transition or crisis. This acquis has, so far, not been matched by any comparable international exercise and continues to be the main reference document for the human dimension work of the OSCE. Over the years, States further developed this human dimension framework by agreeing that:    In Rome 1993, ministers acknowledged that many of the States admitted during the early 1990s were in a difficult period of political and economic transition, but they expressed their expectation that they would do their utmost to ensure the implementation in their countries of all CSCE principles and commitments, also in times of crisis (see Section VIII, para. 2, of the Fourth Meeting of the Council, CSCE and the New Europe — Our Security is Indivisible, Rome, 1 December 1993). Common Responsibility: Commitments and Implementation