Helsinki Commission Hearing to Examine U.S. Policy Toward OSCE

WASHINGTON - The United States Helsinki Commission will hold a hearing which will examine U.S. policy toward the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the institution which evolved from the Helsinki process.

The hearing will review U.S. priorities in the 55-nation OSCE region in advance of the OSCE's annual meeting to review the implementation of OSCE human rights commitments, scheduled to be held in Warsaw, Poland, September 17-27.

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

**CANCELED**

485 Russell Senate Office Building

Scheduled to testify:

A. Elizabeth Jones, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs

Lorne W. Craner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Cathy Fitzpatrick, Executive Director, International League for Human Rights

Ambassador Robert Barry, former Head of OSCE Mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina

P. Terrence Hopmann, professor of political science at Brown University and research director of the Program on Global Security at the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies

Background:

Since the end of the Cold War, the OSCE has evolved into a singular instrument for advancing U.S. foreign policy goals in Eurasia. It remains the only pan-European forum for military-security negotiations; it has grounded multilateral conflict resolution efforts from the Balkans to Chechnya; and the OSCE's annual human rights implementation meeting will be the first major human rights meeting for the United States since its ouster from the U.N. Human Rights Commission earlier this year.

This hearing will examine U.S. priorities and human rights concerns in the OSCE region and how the OSCE can serve to advance those goals and address human rights violations; the pros and cons of the institutionalization and bureaucratization of the OSCE and field activities; and openness and transparency of the process.