to comply with these standards. They may also, if reflective of general state practice and a concomitant opinio iuris, indicate the emergence of regional customary law. A fundamental concept of the OSCE’s human dimension is that human rights and pluralistic democracy are not considered the internal affair of a state. The participating States have stressed that issues relating to human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy, and the rule of law are of international concern, as respect for these rights and freedoms constitutes one of the foundations of the international order. The participating States “categorically and irrevocably” declared that the “commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension of the OSCE are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating States and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concerned.”93 Therefore, OSCE participating States are not in a position to invoke the non-intervention principle to avoid discussions about human rights problems within their own borders. This explains why the OSCE is not only a community of values but also a community of responsibility among peers. Within the OSCE, this responsibility focuses not only on the right to criticize other states for violations of human dimension commitments but also on the duty to assist each other in solving specific problems. Human rights start with an element of empowerment, or with the “right to know your rights.” When the Helsinki Final Act was adopted, participating States committed themselves to making the document widely accessible. This manual forms a part of the OSCE ideal of facilitating access to information about OSCE commitments and best practice in relation to human rights. The formulation and implementation of human rights commitments in the OSCE is managed through a refined system of political summits and other conferences where the implementation of OSCE commitments is discussed. In addition, its Permanent Council oversees the day-to-day implementation of commitments. The human dimension mechanism In addition to regular implementation meetings, the OSCE has also created so-called human dimension mechanisms, the Vienna Mechanism94 and the Moscow Mechanism,95 the latter partly constituting a further elaboration of the Vienna Mechanism. Together, they set out a process for supervising the implementation of human dimension commitments to be invoked on an ad hoc basis by OSCE participating States. The Vienna Mechanism allows a participating State, through a set of procedures, to raise questions relating to the human dimension in another OSCE participating State. The Moscow Mechanism builds on this and provides for the additional possibility to establish ad hoc missions of independent experts to assist in the resolution of a specific human dimension problem. This includes the right to investigate alleged violations of human dimension commitments, in exceptional circumstances even without the consent of the accused state. 93 Op. cit., note 5, 1991 Moscow Document. 94 As established in Vienna in 1989, see op. cit., note 29, 1989 Vienna Document. 95 The Moscow Mechanism was agreed upon at the last meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, see op cit., note 5, 1991 Moscow Document. Countering Terrorism, Protecting Human Rights 49