United States Mission to the OSCE

The U.S. Mission to the OSCE represents the interests of the United States government in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The United States strongly supports the work of the OSCE and views it as the paramount instrument for building a region of stable, open societies in which every country lives at peace with its neighbors. The U.S. Mission to the OSCE engages with the diplomatic representatives of the other participating States and with OSCE staff in promotion of this vision.

The OSCE is a major forum for issues of peace, security and human rights in Europe and Central Asia. A legacy of the historic 1975 Helsinki accords, it is the only fully inclusive trans-Atlantic/European/Eurasian political organization. Every state from Andorra to Kyrgyzstan is represented among its 57 participating States. Over more than thirty years, commitments to democracy, rule of law, human rights, tolerance, pluralism and media freedoms were hammered out at the OSCE and its predecessor mechanisms -- and agreed to by all the participating States.  The OSCE is unique among international organizations in the acceptance by the participating States of the principle that open societies built on human rights and democracy are a necessary component of true security.