Recommendations to Participating States As the ODIHR noted in its mandated report on implementation of OSCE commitments to the 2006 OSCE Ministerial Council, recent years have seen a visible trend of alienation between human rights defenders and state authorities in a number of OSCE participating States.111 Indeed, as the previous sections clearly illustrate, human rights defenders face serious and persistent threats to themselves and their work as they exercise their right to advocate the effective realization of human rights in accordance with international obligations. Participating States have an obligation by virtue of their OSCE commitments and under international law to address these threats and to ensure that all citizens can fully exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms. The ODIHR therefore proposes the following recommendations in order to assist participating States to meet these obligations and improve the situation of human rights defenders. These recommendations complement those made by other bodies, such as the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly,112 the Council of Europe,113 the European Union,114 and the UNSG Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders.115 The recommendations draw, in particular, on discussions at OSCE human dimension meetings. 111 Common Responsibility: Commitments and Implementation (Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR, 2006), report submitted to the OSCE Ministerial Council in response to MC Decision No. 17/05 on Strengthening the Effectiveness of the OSCE (2006), paras. 43-47, <http://www.osce.org/item/22321.html>. 112 OSCE PA, Resolution on Strengthening OSCE Engagement with Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions, Kyiv Declaration of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, 5-9 July 2007, pp. 28-30, <http://www.oscepa.org/admin/getbinary.asp?FileID=1733>. See Annex IV. 113 CoE, “Fundamental Principles on the Status of Non-governmental Organisations in Europe”, May 2003, <http://www.coe.int/T/E/NGO/public/Fundamental_Principles>; CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, Colloquy, op. cit., note 5. 114 EU, “Ensuring Protection - European Union Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders”, 2004, <http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/GuidelinesDefenders.pdf>. 115 The UN SRSG on Human Rights Defenders makes specific recommendations on improving the implementation of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in her annual reports, <http://www. ohchr.org/english/issues/defenders/annual.htm>. 29