Moscow Mechanism expert presents report to OSCE Permanent Council on the Russian Federation

The OSCE Moscow Mechanism rapporteur Professor Angelika Nussberger presented findings collected in the ‘Report on Russia’s Legal and Administrative Practice in Light of its OSCE Human Dimension Commitments’ to the OSCE Permanent Council on 22 September 2022.

The rapporteur was appointed by 38 participating States when the Mechanism was invoked  on 28 July to, “establish a mission of experts to look into and report on the ongoing concerns we have identified as particularly serious threats to the fulfilment of the provisions of the OSCE human dimension by the Russian Federation, to assess Russia’s legal and administrative practice in light of its OSCE commitments, to establish the facts, and to provide recommendations and advice.”

The Mechanism, agreed by all OSCE participating States, allows for an investigation to be launched without consensus and independently of the OSCE Chairmanship, institutions and decision-making bodies if one State, supported by at least nine others, “considers that a particularly serious threat to the fulfilment of the provisions of the [OSCE] human dimension has arisen in another participating State.”

The Permanent Council is one of the OSCE’s main decision-making bodies, and convenes each week in Vienna to discuss developments in the OSCE area and make decisions on future activities.

The observations of the mission of experts are available here.