Co-operation between international organizations crucial to effectively assisting states in countering hate crime, say participants at OSCE/ODIHR event

Effective co-operation between international organizations to counter hate crimes was at the centre of discussion at a side event organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) during the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw on 26 September 2016.

The event featured presentations by representatives from the European Commission, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the European Parliament and the Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI).

“Our organizations share a large number of member states, all of which have made numerous commitments to counter hate crime. However, many of these commitments still need to be implemented,” said Cristina Finch, Head of the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination department.

“For example,” she added, “the vast majority of states have hate crime laws in place, but our data show that there are gaps in hate crime recording by governments. ODIHR and its international partners can help states fulfill their commitments in this field, as the first step in understanding and responding to hate crimes.”

Presenters highlighted joint efforts by the European Commission, FRA and ODIHR to increase the amount of hate crime data collected, notably through the activities of a new joint working group on hate crime data collection that will be chaired by FRA, as well as current efforts undertaken to counter hate crime by ECRI and the European Parliament.

“Our work in the subgroup of the European Union High Level Group on combating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance will aim to develop a common method for recording and collecting data on hate crime in order to improve comparability of official data on hate crime across the EU,” said Niraj Nathwani, Programme Manager for Legal Research at FRA.

ODIHR also presented preliminary findings based on hate crime data collected for 2015, to be published in November on the dedicated website, hatecrime.osce.org. The Office also assists participating States through programmes aimed at improving their recording and data collection systems.