ALEX NITZSCHE Common Responsibility T Ministerial Council in Brussels. he year 2006 was another challenging one for the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Fifteen elections were monitored by the ODIHR, many drawing considerable international attention; monitoring of hate-motivated incidents was further enhanced; and the Office undertook extensive reporting on its activities, as directed by the 2005 Ministerial Council. The report Common Responsibility: Commitments and Implementation focuses on implementation of OSCE commitments on human rights and democracy, possible supplementary commitments, and ways to strengthen and further the ODIHR’s election observation and improve the effectiveness of its assistance to the 56 participating States. It reflects not only our work, but also our understanding of the nature and depth of commitments undertaken by OSCE states. It offers concrete proposals about future election observation activities, human rights, and tolerancerelated issues, as well as issues pertaining to democratic governance and the rule of law. In the report, we identify a number of areas of concern for the entire OSCE region, such as curtailing freedom of assembly and association, the situation of human rights defenders, and electoral shortcomings. It suggests how these 4 Annual Report  The ODIHR published a report on its activities for the issues may be addressed and discusses possible additional commitments on elections, separation of powers, democratic law-making, administration of justice, protection of human rights in the fight against terrorism, prevention of torture, and non-discrimination. The report followed the launch of a tolerance and non-discrimination information system that focuses on issues such as hate incidents, xenophobia, and religious freedom in the OSCE region; and a report on hate crimes and violent manifestations of intolerance in the first half of 2006. The information system’s website and the hateincidents report are our way of raising awareness about the need to fight intolerance and to carry out the task given to us by the OSCE’s participating States to serve as a collection point for information related to tolerance and nondiscrimination issues and to closely follow hatemotivated incidents in the OSCE region. Both reports show some worrying trends, such as a rise in racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and discriminatory discourse coming from political leaders, or restrictive actions against human rights defenders. They serve to remind us, yet again, that much remains to be done to ensure that human rights are respected, that there is genuine democracy, and that the rule of law prevails throughout the OSCE region.