About the OSCE
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
With 57 States drawn from Europe, Central Asia and America, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security organization, bringing comprehensive and co-operative security to a region that stretches from Vancouver to Vladivostok.
It offers a forum for political negotiations and decision-making in the fields of early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation, and puts the political will of the participating States into practice through its unique network of field missions.
The OSCE approach to security is comprehensive and cooperative: comprehensive in dealing with a wide range of security-related issues including arms control, preventive diplomacy, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, democratization, election monitoring and economic and environmental security; cooperative in the sense that all OSCE participating States have equal status. Decisions are taken by consensus on a politically, but not legally binding basis.