The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, promotion of human rights, freedom of the press, and fair elections. It employs around 3,460 people, mostly in its field operations but also in its secretariat in Vienna, Austria, and its institutions. It has its origins in the 1975 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human rights abusers to denounce abuse and respect human rights, and the group often works on behalf of refugees, children, migrants, and political prisoners.
The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki, Finland, during 30 July – 1 August, 1975. All then-existing European countries as well as United States and Canada, altogether 35 participating states, signed the Final Act in an attempt to improve the détente between the Soviet bloc and the West. The Helsinki Accords, however, were not binding as they did not have treaty status that would have to be ratified by parliaments. Sometimes the term "Helsinki pact(s)" was also used unofficialy.
The Helsinki Committees for Human Rights exist in many European countries as volunteer, non-profit organizations devoted to human rights and presumably named after the Helsinki Accords. Formerly organized into the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) based in Vienna.
The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) was a self-governing group of non-governmental organizations that act to protect human rights throughout Europe, North America and Central Asia. A specific primary goal was to monitor compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act and its follow-up documents.
Sofiya Vasilyevna Kalistratova, also known as Sofia Kallistratova was a public defense lawyer in the Soviet Union. She defended various Soviet dissidents and from 1977 was a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), distributing information about human rights violations in the Soviet Union.
The Moscow Helsinki Group is today one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki Accords and to report to the West on Soviet human rights abuses. It was forced out of existence in the early 1980s, but revived in 1989 and continues to operate in Russia today.
All-Ukrainian Association of Public Organizations Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU) was founded by 15 public human rights organizations on 1 April 2004. UHHRU is a non-profit and non-partisan organization.
The Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights is an organisation founded to protect and promote human rights in Croatia. It was founded on 31 March 1993, first as a branch of the International Helsinki Federation, and, since 14 April 2003, as a local NGO under Croatian law, by independent intellectuals, artists, lawyers, and journalists committed to the protection and promotion of human rights.
Aaron Anthony Rhodes is an international human rights activist, university lecturer and essayist based in Hamburg, Germany. He is a co-founder of the Freedom Rights Project, a human rights research initiative and think-tank, which documents and analyzes trends including the inflation, dilution and politicization of human rights in international law. He is also President of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe, an independent nongovernmental organization. In 2019, Rhodes assumed the position of Human Rights Editor of Dissident Magazine, a project of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Renate Weber is a Romanian lawyer and human rights activist who, in November 2007, was elected as Member of the European Parliament. She is the first Romanian appointed as Chief of an EU Election Observation Mission. Between 2004 – 2005 she was Advisor on constitutional and legislative matters to the President of Romania. She is currently the People's Advocate of Romania.
Eren Keskin is a lawyer and human rights activist in Turkey. She is the vice-president of the Turkish Human Rights Association (İHD) and a former president of its Istanbul branch. She co-founded the project "Legal Aid For Women Who Were Raped Or Otherwise Sexually Abused by National Security Forces”, to expose abuses happening to women in Turkish prisons. She has been arrested, imprisoned, and the object of numerous lawsuits in relation to her human rights activities.
The Madrid Principles are one of the proposed peace settlements of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The original version of the principles was presented to the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) ministerial conference in the Spanish capital Madrid in November 2007. They originated from a revised version of the peace settlement proposal unveiled by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries in the early summer of 2006. In 2009 at the urging of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen the Madrid Principles were updated.
GATE is an organisation and think tank on gender identity, sex characteristics and bodily diversity issues. The current executive director is Mauro Cabral Grinspan. Mauro Cabral Grinspan is an Argentinian intersex and trans activist, and signatory of the Yogyakarta Principles.
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is a Non-Governmental Organization founded in 1977, working to ensure that human rights are respected in practice. Until it was closed down in 2008, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee was affiliated with the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, which was a self-governing group of 44 national Helsinki Committees and associated organizations in Europe, Central Asia and North America. It is based in Oslo, Norway.
The Czech Helsinki Committee is a non-governmental non-profit organization for human rights. It has operated in Czechoslovakia since 1988 and in the Czech Republic since 1993. It was founded as one of the first "Helsinki" organizations outside of the USSR, and is the first formalized human rights NGO in the country.
The Lithuanian Helsinki Group was a dissident organization active in the Lithuanian SSR, one of the republics of the Soviet Union, in 1975–83. Established to monitor the implementation of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as Helsinki Accords, it was the first human rights organization in Lithuania. The group published over 30 documents that exposed religious repressions, limitations on freedom of movement, political abuse of psychiatry, discrimination of minorities, persecution of human right activists, and other violations of human rights in the Soviet Union. Most of the documents reached the West and were published by other human rights groups. Members of the group were persecuted by the Soviet authorities. Its activities diminished after it lost members due to deaths, emigration, or imprisonment, though it was never formally disbanded. Some of the group's functions were taken over by the Catholic Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Believers, founded by five priests in 1978. Upon his release from prison, Viktoras Petkus reestablished the Lithuanian Helsinki Group in 1988.
Finland–Kazakhstan relations refers to the bilateral relations between Finland and Kazakhstan. Finland has an embassy in Nur-Sultan whilst Kazakhstan has an embassy in Helsinki. Both countries are members of Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Azerbaijan joined the CSCE on January 30, 1992. This was the first European organization for Azerbaijan to join.
The Netherlands Helsinki Committee (NHC) is a non-governmental organization that promotes human rights and strengthens the rule of law and democracy in all countries of Europe, and the Central Asian countries participating in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
