CSCE’s Crucial Role: Conflict Resolution

Ambassadors Goodby and Maresca agreed that long-term conflict reso-
lution and prevention should be the principal role for the CSCE in the
future, a course that the organization is uniquely qualified to pursue. With
the outbreak of numerous local conflicts following the end of the Cold
War, it is apparent that the CSCE is especially well adapted to carry out
preventive diplomacy missions and related activities. In fact, Maresca said,
the CSCE has shown itself to be “the most creative organization in the
world today in the field of preventive diplomacy.” The CSCE’s preven-
tive diplomacy undertakings include activities of the High Commissioner
for National Minorities (which Maresca believes should be expanded), as
well as specialized missions in Nagorno-Karabakh, Latvia, Estonia,
Macedonia, Kazakhstan, and other areas. A good example of the kind of
long-term undertaking in which the CSCE works as a process is the small
negotiating body, the Minsk Group, set up to negotiate a cease-fire and a
peaceful settlement in the war over Nagorno-Karabakh. Unfortunately,
Maresca pointed out, there is no easy way to determine whether preven-
tive diplomacy efforts are successful because, if they are, little is heard
about them.

The CSCE should strengthen its activities even more in the preventive
diplomacy field, Maresca continued. Goodby strongly seconded this sug-
gestion, noting that not enough attention or support has been given to this
special role for the CSCE. The two speakers agreed that the office of the
High Commissioner for National Minorities is an excellent example of the
kind of mission in which the CSCE should be involved. According to Goodby,
the current commissioner, Max van der Stoel, is carrying out precisely the
kind of long-term problem-solving activities that the CSCE does best.
Maresca added that it would be useful to have additional senior CSCE ob-
servers with broad mandates like that of the High Commissioner to look into
how well the CSCE’s principles are being respected. According to Maresca,
the CSCE could also serve as a locus for coordinating the activities of non
governmental organizations, which play a useful, nonthreatening role in pre-
ventive diplomacy. The process of conflict resolution is long, thoughtful,
and conducted behind-the-scenes; this is the sort of activity the CSCE does
well.

Core Values and CSCE Membership:
New Opportunities

According to Maresca, there has been some concern that the current scope
of the CSCE is too broad and its membership too large and, consequently,
that the organization no longer incorporates countries of a“common cul-
ture.” However, both speakers agreed that every activity of the CSCE
refers back to its core values: human rights, rule-of-law, and economic
liberty. The forum is, in Goodby’s words, “a custodian of values,” which
are American values as well. The central purpose of the CSCE has re-
mained the same; any new activities should to be designed to advance this
purpose.

The CSCE’s mission as a custodian of values has not changed because many
new states of the former Soviet Union, in transition from totalitarianism to

. . the CSCE’s human
rights role is not a thing
of the past, and far from
engendering concern, the
current size of CSCE
membership and the
increasing scope of its
concerns are important
qualities, especially with
respect to the advance-
ment of human rights.


. . the lack of
commitment of key
countries, including the
United States, means that
the CSCE has been given
no clear role and identity
.. .while other
institutions, particularly
NATO, have been
encouraged to develop
programs and
characteristics that
resemble and possibly
duplicate those of the
CSCE.

10

favor of practical assistance to diplomatic efforts and, in the long term, to
Russia’s peacekeeping forces,” Kozyrev said. This quote, Goodby noted, re-
flects the spheres-of-influence style of peacekeeping that is emerging in vari-
ous parts of the world.

Maresca said that Russia’s proposals for the Budapest Summit contained
some useful and some problematic ideas. He applauded Moscow’s initiative
in putting forth any proposals at all. Regarding Russia’s proposal that the
CSCE be strengthened, however, he saw a “striking” difference between what
the Russians said on this issue and what they are actually doing—in Nagorno-
Karabakh, for example, where they are thwarting CSCE efforts.

A high-ranking U.S. official denied that the United States has fully accepted
the concept of spheres-of-influence peacekeeping. Nor has the U.S. govern-
ment accepted Russia’s “free hand” in the former Soviet republics. What is
understood in Washington, he said, is the limitations of the United States in
the southern regions of the former Soviet Union and a “realistic acceptance”
that Russia has greater influence there. This reality is precisely why the CSCE
is so useful for the United States—to provide a way for the West to be active
in regions such as Central Asia and the Caucasus on an agreed-upon basis and
in a nonconfrontational manner.

The U.S. Role in the CSCE

The participants agreed that unless the United States plays a greater lead-
ership role in the CSCE, it will gradually lose the potential for contribut-
ing to the management and resolution of problems in Europe. Leadership
is needed to identify the CSCE’s specific role in European and CIS affairs
and to strengthen its ability to work effectively. Maresca suggested that
the lack of commitment of key countries, including the United States,
means that the CSCE has been given no clear role and identity (although
it has the potential to assume one), while other institutions, particularly
NATO, have been encouraged to develop programs and characteristics that
resemble and possibly duplicate those of the CSCE. The U.S. govern-
ment should draw a clear distinction between NATO and the CSCE. Both
institutions are useful, but they have different functions, and there should
be no attempt to make one resemble the other.

It was agreed that although many of the proposals put forward by Russia
for the Budapest Summit were unacceptable, at least Russia was making the
effort to encourage debate on the organization's future. The United States
should also be advancing ideas for CSCE meetings if it wants to continue be-
ing considered a leader in the organization.


contact is cut off, then any further hope of influencing that government's be-
havior is lost. However, not criticizing enough gives the appearance of sanc-
tioning the violations, or at the very least being indifferent to the plight of
those suffering from the violations. It is a dilemma that was never resolved
definitively throughout the years of the Cold War.

Methodology and Means

The CSCE will remain relevant, Maresca said, because its particular meth-
odology can be useful in other parts of the world. The CSCE approach is
to include all states in the area it covers, regardless of their political sys-
tems, and the consensus basis for decisionmaking is nonthreatening to
participants. The forum is based on an agreed upon set of principles ap-
plying to several “baskets” of issues, which provides for tradeoffs in nego-
tiations on various issues. Finally, the CSCE is a process rather than a one-
time event. These methods provide incentives for all participants. Such
methods, even if they are not strictly embodied in other regional organi-
zations based on the CSCE, can be useful elsewhere, as can other specific
CSCE concepts, such as confidence-building measures.

Regarding the means available to the CSCE to carry out its work, Maresca
said that the principal problem is a lack of leadership, including the absence
of clear direction from the United States, which could give energy to the or-
ganization. There is a mechanical dimension to the problem as well: the sec-
retary general of the CSCE has no leadership powers, as the post is essentially
administrative. Unlike other international organizations, the leadership of the
CSCE, vested in its “chairman in office,” rotates each year, and is held by the
foreign minister of one of the member states. Every foreign minister has a
full-time job in his or her own capital, so there is no day-to-day senior-level
leadership for the CSCE. Maresca asserted that combining the chairman and
secretary general positions could give the CSCE could have a full-time leader
of political stature, located in Vienna, where primary CSCE activities are con-
ducted. In this way, the CSCE could have the continuing supervision and
profile it needs for its major activities. Maresca also suggested consolidating
all of the activities of the CSCE in Vienna. The High Commissioner for Na-
tional Minorities, based in the Hague, and the Office for Democratic Institu-
tions and Human Rights in Warsaw have related and even parallel responsi-
bilities, but their physical separation inhibits mutual consultation.

In response to Maresca’s suggestions on consolidating the CSCE’s institu-
tions, one participant expressed concern that the CSCE would become more
bureaucratic. The aim should be to “let the CSCE be the CSCE,” meaning an
international organization unlike any other. Recognizing that it is not NATO
or the EU, the CSCE should not be given structures and institutions to re-
semble those other organizations. New global problems simply are not going
to be solved easily or quickly, and this is precisely why and how the CSCE
can be particularly valuable. It should keep its own strengths—such as the
consensus rule, for example—and not adopt the methods of other organiza-
tions by becoming more institutionalized.

Other participants agreed that the CSCE needs a strong leader, much stron-
ger than the current post of secretary general, to rally support for its deci-
sions. The head of the CSCE should be a well-known figure with consider-

. . combining the
chairman and secretary
general positions could
give the CSCE could have
a full-time leader of
political stature, located
in Vienna, where primary
CSCE activities are
conducted. In this way,
the CSCE could have the
continuing supervision
and profile it needs for its

major activities.


The CSCE approach is to
include all states in the
area it covers, regardless
of their political systems,
and the consensus basis for
decisionmaking is
nonthreatening to
participants.

democracy, have yet to establish rule-of-law systems, and human rights vio-
lations frequently occur there. The inclusion of these states means that the
CSCE and the Helsinki principles now stretch as far as Central Asia. The
organization remains a forum in which these values (in some cases, unfamil-
iar ones) can be advanced among—not imposed upon—the new members,
who sign on to them when they join the CSCE. According to Maresca, this
situation presents “an enormous opportunity” for the CSCE to expand its
values to far-flung regions, especially since the CSCE is the only organiza-
tion that is seriously attempting to bring these regions into a meaningful rela-
tionship with the Western world. Thus, the CSCE’s human rights role is not
a thing of the past, and far from engendering concern, the current size of
CSCE membership and the increasing scope of its concerns are important
qualities, especially with respect to the advancement of human rights.

The CSCE should encourage new members, who may have relatively little
contact with the outside world, to incorporate the Helsinki principles into
the transition process from totalitarianism to the consolidation of their inde-
pendence and sovereignty. Furthermore, Maresca suggested, the member-
ship of the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia in the CSCE presents
the organization with an unusual opportunity to help in the process of bridg-
ing the gap between the Judeo-Christian West and the Muslim East. While
this is not necessarily a direct aim of the CSCE, the issue is nevertheless “a
major problem of our time,” in which the CSCE can potentially play a help-
ful role.

This task of bridge-building, according to Maresca, requires a “mental
change” on the part of the veteran members of the CSCE, especially those
from the western bloc. These members must believe that individuals in
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan today are as important as individuals in Czecho-
slovakia and Poland were during the Cold War. In the past, CSCE diplomats
were familiar with the names of the many dissidents in the eastern bloc coun-
tries and regularly made pleas on behalf of political prisoners. Such pleas are
not being made on behalf of political prisoners in some of the Central Asian
countries, Maresca said—the mental change has not been made. Instead,
most of those in the CSCE seem to want to believe that such activities are
part of the past, ignoring the fact that human rights violations are occurring
in some of the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Maresca cited the
Eurocentric attitude of many CSCE members as part of the problem. An
even more dangerous reason for the indifference is the acceptance among
many in the West of the Caucasus and Central Asia as part of Russia’s sphere
of influence, about which there is little inclination to do anything.

One participant noted that pressing the Central Asian countries on hu-
man rights violations comes into direct conflict with the western aim of en-
gaging those countries more fully in the CSCE process. What if strident
criticism of violators in the region serves only to drive them out of the CSCE?
The Helsinki principles may be intact, but the chance to further influence
the withdrawing countries will have ended. However, failing to criticize egre-
gious human rights violations seriously compromises the very principles on
which the CSCE rests. This dilemma is reminiscent of the familiar polemic
in the Cold War period of how best to influence a government that routinely
violates the human rights of its citizens; if the criticism is so harsh that all


Maresca disagreed with Goodby’s assertions on the CSCE’s peacekeeping
role. He said the CSCE should be able to field at least limited peacekeeping
operations, partly because the UN is overwhelmed with such operations and
desperately needs assistance. The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is a good
example of a smaller, localized conflict in which CSCE-directed peacekeep-
ing could play a role. Such intervention would be happening, Maresca said,
were it not for Russia's systematically “blocking and undercutting” the CSCE’s
efforts.

Other participants also disputed Goodby’s assessment of the future of the
security brief within the CSCE. From the very first discussions that led to
the establishment of the CSCE through 1990, it was asserted, the CSCE has
contributed greatly to security matters, especially in providing a normative
framework for the behavior of states. The signing of the Paris document
added a very important institutional character to the CSCE, which now in-
cludes all of the states that are affected by the problems resulting from the
end of the Cold War, problems that have come out of the “deep freeze” of
totalitarianism. It is important to recognize this transition of the CSCE’s
role from providing norms to providing an institutional framework within
which these post-Cold War questions are addressed.

The first challenge to the CSCE—the crisis in Yugoslavia—presented it-
self to an overextended institution, still very young in its institutional form.
The CSCE’s inability to resolve the conflict led to considerable disappoint-
mentin the organization and pessimism about its role in Europe. The expec-
tations were simply too high; the Yugoslav situation was, after all, the first
case to invoke the emergency mechanism. This experience should not dis-
suade the members from using the CSCE in the context of its still developing
ability to address issues involving conflict and conflict prevention.

Regional Peacekeeping and the Russian Proposals

Goodby suggested another reason that security issues will not be as promi-
nent for the CSCE: “collective security” is no longer discussed. Instead,
the reality seems to be spheres-of-influence peacekeeping, of which Haiti
and the Central Asian countries are good examples. This does not mean,
Goodby continued, that the CSCE has no role; rather, the CSCE simply
will not be the primary instrument for determining the ground rules in
the sphere-of-influence peacekeeping process.

Regarding the Russian proposals to change the CSCE, Goodby said that,
in some respects, several of the ideas deserve a hearing. For example, there is
a need for small, subregional groupings within the CSCE that could rein-
force its particular roles. A strong secretary general is also needed. Goodby
disagreed with the Russian proposal to move away from the consensus basis
for decision making; however, he said, Russia should have a major voice in
the affairs of Europe that bear on its security, just as the United States should
have a voice in European affairs—and those of the CIS—that affect its secu-
rity concerns.

Goodby referred to a Russian newspaper article that quoted Russian For-
eign Minister Andrei Kozyrev on the role of the CSCE in the Nagorno-
Karabakh dispute. “Today, a test-case for the CSCE’s maturity is in renounc-
ing the competition to become the ‘chief broker’ in the Karabakh conflict in

The first challenge to the
CSCE—the crisis in
Yugoslavia—presented
itself to an overextended
institution, still very
young in its institutional
form. The CSCE’s
inability to resolve the
conflict led to considerable
disappointment in the
organization and
pessimism about its role
in Europe.


Anout THE Report

The end of the Cold War has brought an
apparent decline in the importance of the
Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe (CSCE), a forum known pri-
marily for its stroggle against human
rights violations in the countries of the
former eastern bloc.

On September 26, 1994, the United
States Institute of Peace convened a
roundtable of CSCE practitioners and
experts to discuss the forum's future role
in post-Cold War Europe. This report
contains the views of several of the
forum's key participants. For more in-
formation, please contact Patricia Carley
at (202) 429-3822.

The Future of the Conference on

Security and Cooperation in Europe
A United States Institute of Peace Roundtable

KEY POINTS

= Conflict Resolution is the most valuable new role the Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) can play, and one for
which itis uniquely suited among international institutions. Long-term
solutions to the complex conflicts now facing Europe and parts of the
former Soviet Union require the development of rule-of-law-based
systems that protect individual human rights. The CSCE is especially
well adapted to assist in this process and to carry out preventive diplo-
macy missions and related activities.

= CSCE Values From its inception, the primary purpose of the CSCE
has been the promotion of human rights, the rule-of-law, and economic
liberty, values embodied in the Helsinki Final Act. All of the CSCE’s
activities are designed to promote these values, which represent Ameri-
can values also. Though some may see the CSCE differently, this cen-
tral purpose has not changed, since many new states of the former So-
viet Union—in transition from totalitarianism to democracy —have yet
to establish rule-of-law systems, and human rights violations frequently
occur. The membership of these new states in the CSCE represents an
opportunity to promote the values in the Helsinki Final Act.

= Security The CSCE’s future role does not appear to lic in the field of
security in the usual sense, although conflict resolution does have a
security dimension. Government leaders are more likely to turn to the
other institutions that manage security issues, including NATO, the
European Union (EU), and the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS). Nor should the CSCE necessarily be involved in peacekeeping,
since the manner in which humanitarian and political intervention is
being undertaken is shifting, perhaps toward “spheres-of-influence
peacekeeping” rather than full international efforts.

= CSCE Structure The consensus decision making procedures of the
CSCE, although they have been modified in certain instances, have been
criticized for leading to inaction or to watering positions down to the
lowest common denominator until they are essentially ineffectual. The
central leadership of the CSCE is weak because of the part-time status
of the chairman, whose primary job is foreign minister of his or her

1550 M Stree, N.W., Surre 700 © WASHINGTON, DC 20005-1708 ¢ PHONE 202/457-1700 © Fax 202/429-6063


NATO is a household
word in the United States,
which is one reason why
American political
leadership automatically
turns to NATO rather
than the CSCE when a
Security matter is at
stake.

able political clout in the international arena so that he or she could capture
media and public attention for the issue at hand and for the CSCE’s attempts
to resolve it. This position would be even more effective, some participants
felt, if all CSCE institutions were consolidated in one location.

Security Affairs in the CSCE

After declaring that the CSCE has a “brilliant future,” Ambassador
Goodby qualified this assessment by saying that this future will zo¢ be in
the field of security or in the area of peacekeeping. When the Paris docu-
ment was originally signed, Goodby said, he was among those who wel-
comed what looked like a major role for the CSCE in European security
affairs. However, he now thinks the CSCE should return to its roots,
which he defined as human rights and conflict resolution.

Goodby stated his original belief that, regarding security matters, the closer
the headquarters-less CSCE is to the decisionmakers in each capital, the more
effective the organization can be. Although he was initially opposed to the
institutionalization of the CSCE—through the creation of a secretariat, for
example—he was nevertheless hopeful that institutions such as the Commit-
tee of Senior Officials would provide the necessary link to political leaders in
their capitals. However, this was not the case for two very specific reasons,
neither of which implies that the institutions themselves were necessarily faulty.

First, there is the problem of “institution overload”—many other organi-
zations deal with security issues. The CSCE, Goodby said, is policy makers’
second, third, or fourth favorite institution for security matters; rarely, if
ever, is it the first choice. NATO is a household word in the United States,
which is one reason why American political leadership automatically turns
to NATO rather than the CSCE when a security matter is at stake. In Eu-
rope, people turn to the EU or the West European Union, both of which
have generally assumed a stronger role than the CSCE. Even the CIS is con-
sidered, by some in the security field, as potentially more efficacious than the
CSCE in dealing with security issues. Goodby said that he did not expect
this situation to change.

He stressed that the CSCE should not be involved in situations in which
troops are going to be used to resolve a conflict. The CSCE has been asked
to perform tasks that are not within its competence, tasks that it was not de-
signed to do; the organization should not, Goodby said, be involved in peace-
keeping. When Russian Defense Minister Paval Grachev visited Brussels, he
commented that the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) would
have a major role in political-military affairs in Europe and the CSCE would
have a predominant role in politico-diplomatic affairs. This is a good assess-
ment, Goodby said, and a view that he shares.

Goodby said that it is necessary today to think of the CSCE as a “larger
Council of Europe,” whose role is essentially one of promoting conflict reso-
lution, by which he means the /ozg-serm resolution of a conflict. This is not,
he stressed, the same thing as imposing a settlement or negotiating a cease-
fire—‘“conflict resolution” is not what is happening today in the former Yu-
goslavia. The CSCE’s primary role should continue to be in the fields of
human rights, minority affairs, and conflict resolution—not security matters
in the traditional sense.


... long-term conflict
resolution and prevention
should be the principal
role for the CSCE in the
future, a course that the
organization is uniquely
qualified to pursue.

On the other hand, the CSCE has been quietly conducting and develop-
ing important preventive diplomacy initiatives in a number of areas, making
it, by some accounts, the international organization best suited to this essen-
tial field. The enlarged membership—which includes all the newly inde-
pendent states of the former Soviet Union as well as Albania and the states
from former Yugoslavia—is seen by some not as a hindrance but as an op-
portunity to strengthen the relevance of the CSCE, the only organization
that has attempted to engage all these new states in meaningful diplomatic
processes.

Several countries, including Russia, have advanced proposals to reform
the CSCE. To “strengthen” (the word used by Russian diplomats) the orga-
nization, the Russian proposals would reorganize it into an all-European se-
curity group that would have a coordinating role among other security orga-
nizations such as NATO and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
To accomplish this, an executive council of ten countries would be created,
five of which would be permanent members with veto powers, to oversee
security decisions of NATO, the West European Union, and the CIS. Russia
has also sought official CSCE support for its peacekeeping efforts in the CIS,
especially and most immediately in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The
Russian plan also contains suggestions for changing the CSCE's decision
making process, including the policy of consensus. The Russian proposals
have thus far been met with skepticism from many other CSCE (and espe-
cially NATO) members.

To examine the future of the CSCE in terms of conflict resolution and
peacemaking in Europe, the United States Institute of Peace convened a
roundtable discussion on September 26, 1994. The meeting was attended
by “CSCE hands” from both the government and the private sector and
chaired by Max Kampelman, vice chairman of the board of directors of the
United States Institute of Peace and former U.S. ambassador to many CSCE
meetings, including the Madrid Review Meeting (1985-88); the Meeting on
the Rights of National Minorities, held in Geneva in 1990; and the Moscow
Human Dimension Meeting (1991). Remarks on the CSCE’s future were
offered by James Goodby, former U.S. ambassador to the CSCE negotiations
on Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs) in Stockholm (1988-
89), and John J. Maresca, former U.S. ambassador to the CSBM negotiations
and the CSCE (1989-92), and special U.S. negotiator on Nagorno-Karabakh
(1992-94). Ambassador Goodby was recently a distinguished fellow and Am-
bassador Maresca was a guest scholar at the United States Institute of Peace.

This was considered a good time for public airing of the problems of the
CSCE, the challenges it faces, and ideas for improvingit. This special report
seeks to inform the interested public of the issues and stimulate the thinking
of Washington policymakers in the wake of the summit of CSCE leaders held
in Budapest December 5-6, 1994.

Ambassador Kampelman noted at the outset that there is a general feeling
of disappointment in the CSCE’s perceived inability to deal in the funda-
mental problems facing Europe today and in the apparent absence of U.S.
leadership in the organization. The CSCE is not even close to being a house-
hold word in the United States, according to Kampelman, even among the
press and branches of government. This situation is partly the result of skep-
ticism about American participation in the forum from the very beginning.


The CSCE in the Post Cold-War World

The CSCE was formed in August 1975 upon the signing of the Helsinki
Final Act in Helsinki, Finland. The Final Act, which came to be known
as the Helsinki Accord, covered three areas, referred to as “baskets”: se-
curity affairs, economic and environmental issues, and human rights. The
membership of the CSCE made it an unusual organization from its in-
ception; it included not only the countries of Eastern and Western Eu-
rope (with the exception of Albania) together with the United States and
Canada, but also small European entities such as Monaco and the Holy
See. Some Americans initially opposed U.S. membership in the CSCE,
fearing that the existence of an organization containing eastern bloc coun-
tries might formally sanction the Soviet Union’s dominion over those
countries. However, not long after the establishment of the CSCE, the
first two “baskets” yielded in prominence to the third, and the organiza-
tion became—and has largely remained—a forum at which the West per-
sistently reminded the eastern bloc countries oftheir failure to adhere to
the human rights commitments delineated in the Helsinki agreements.
Throughout this time, the CSCE was unique in that it had no headquar-
ters or staff and was grounded only ina series of nonbinding agreements.

With the end of the Cold War, the status of the CSCE changed radically.
There was some concern that the CSCE would be seen as a relic of the Cold
War and would lose its relevance, but the opposite has proved to be true.
New kinds of problems emerged to occupy the CSCE’s agenda. At the Paris
Summit of 1990, the CSCE’s Charter for a New Europe was signed—a major
effort to reshape the CSCE from a Cold War debating forum to an opera-
tional organization capable of sharing the responsibility for managing the
evolving security situation in Europe. With the political changes in Eastern
Europe and in many of the newly independent states of the former Soviet
Union, traditional human rights violations were no longer the major con-
cern. In their place came the need to deal with the eruption of deadly con-
flicts in such areas as former Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
CSCE institutions were established to cope with these new problems, in-
cluding the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw,
a Conflict Prevention Center in Vienna, and a High Commissioner for Na-
tional Minorities, based in the Hague.

However, the CSCE’s inability to deal with these brutal conflicts has raised
anew set of concerns about its ultimate effectiveness in today’s changed world.
The forum is widely praised for its steadfast adherence to human rights prin-
ciples (so much so that the phrase “Helsinki principles” is now synonymous
with human rights), and its contribution to the end of the Cold War is un-
questioned. However, the future of the forum remains in question. It has
failed to resolve the conflicts in Bosnia and Nagorno-Karabakh, its member-
ship has grown from 35 to 53 members (52 active members, as Yugoslavia, in
the form of Serbia-Montenegro, is currently suspended), it operates under
the constraints of its consensus rule, and it is ultimately unable to enforce its
decisions. It seems that the CSCE has not been able to adjust fast enough. In
addition, the CSCE’s new institutions have been criticized for making a
uniquely floating forum more bureaucratic. Despite its many mechanisms
and devices, the CSCE has not always been a central player in efforts to re-
solve conflicts over the last few years.

Despite its many
mechanisms and devices,
the CSCE bas not always
been a central player in
efforts to resolve conflicts
over the last few years


country. The secretary general position has no genuine leadership
powers or authority and is not currently occupied by a widely recog-
nized person. The dispersal of CSCE institutions—in Vienna, War-
saw, the Hague, and Prague—further weakens the organization. Un-
fortunately, there is opposition to locating all these bodies in one place.

= The Russian Proposals The proposals put forward by Russia to
teform the CSCE contain some useful as well as problematic ideas.
There may be a need for small sub-regional groupings within the CSCE
to reinforce its particular roles, as well as for a strong secretary gen-
eral. Consensus decision making, however, should not be abandoned.
And Russia’s proposal that the CSCE be strengthened contrasts with
that country’s attempts to thwart CSCE activities in Nagorno-Karabakh
in favor of its own efforts.

m The United States and the CSCE The United States should play
a greater leadership role in the CSCE, or it will gradually lose its po-

The United States should tential for contributing to the management and resolution of problems
play 4 greater leadership in Europe. The lack of commitment of key countries, including the
yale abECSCE or it United States, has left the CSCE with no clear role (although it has the
4 potential to assume one). Meanwhile, other institutions, particularly
will gradually lose its NATO, have been encouraged to develop programs and characteristics
potential for contributing that resemble and possibly duplicate those of the CSCE.

to the management and
resolution of problems in
Europe.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect views of
the United States Institute of Peace, which does not advocate par-
ticular policies.