1.
INTRODUCTION
The police-related activities of the OSCE executive structures are based on a comprehensive
list of mandates and tasks, which have been provided by various Ministerial Council and
Permanent Council Decisions since 1998. The latest comprehensive set of mandates was
adopted in 2012, with the Dublin Ministerial Council Decision No. 4/12 on OSCE’s Efforts to
Address Transnational Threats, which endorsed four decisions that had been adopted in
2012 by the Permanent Council, addressing the Development of Confidence-Building
Measures to Reduce the Risks of Conflict Stemming from the Use of Information and
Communication Technologies (PC Decision No. 1039); the OSCE Concept for Combating
the Threat of Illicit Drugs and the Diversion of Chemical Precursors (PC Decision No. 1048);
the OSCE Strategic Framework for Police-Related Activities (PC Decision No. 1049); as well
as the OSCE Consolidated Framework for the Fight against Terrorism (PC Decision No.
1063). In 2013, the participating States also adopted an Initial Set of OSCE ConfidenceBuilding Measures to Reduce the Risks of Conflict stemming from the Use of Information and
Communication Technologies.4
With the adoption of the OSCE Strategic Framework for Police-Related Activities in 2012, the
participating States reaffirmed their acknowledgement of the key role that OSCE policerelated activities play in the Organization’s efforts to address threats to security and stability
in the OSCE region posed by criminal activity emanating from organized crime, including
terrorism and trafficking in drugs and human beings, as well as in the areas of conflict
prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. Furthermore, the participating
States acknowledged the added value of the OSCE’s police-related activities in the
international context, and reaffirmed the priority areas of OSCE engagement that they had
defined in the past decade, and which had already been addressed by the OSCE executive
structures throughout the previous years.
Since the OSCE promotes a comprehensive and cross-dimensional approach to the concept
of security, interconnecting the rule of law and economic development and stability, policerelated activities continued receiving a significant amount of attention from various OSCE
executive structures. That is, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
(ODIHR) and the field operations, as well as several thematic units of the OSCE Secretariat,
including the Co-ordination Cell of the Transnational Threats Department (TNTD/CC), the
TNTD/Strategic Police Matters Unit, the TNTD/Action against Terrorism Unit (ATU), the
TNTD/Borders Security and Management Unit, the Gender Section, the Office of the Coordinator of Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA), and the Office of the Special
Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings (OSR/CTHB).
All of these executive structures focused on specific police-related aspects and issues in
their respective programmes in line with their mandates.
The following map provides an overview of OSCE field operations that undertook policerelated activities in 2013.
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For a comprehensive overview of the Decisions, see Appendix 2 to this report.
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