In December 2000 Max van der Stoel, High Commissioner on National Minorities in his speech about “Legal Aspects of Minority Rights: Participation in Decision-Making Processes and Bilateral Agreements on Minority Rights”, he states that bilateral agreements which include provisions on minority rights, must have a strong emphasis on reciprocity, and should be based on established international standards. Because new issues arise and relationships change, treaties should set up mechanisms for political consultations and/or joint commissions to follow-up on treaty provisions. Moreover, bilateral treaties are no substitute for good domestic policy and legislation, nor do they supersede other international standards and can not replace multilateral mechanisms which have the essential attributes of independence and impartiality.

A workshop on "Trans-Border Cooperation and Development of Migration Legislation" was held in October 2001 in Almaty, on initiative of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE and the IOM Technical Cooperation Centre for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Among the conclusions of the workshop were a definition of the conditions necessary to reach a positive trans-border cooperation in the field of migration legislation: amongst them are harmonization of legislation, implementation of the national migration policy, cooperation with international community in fair sharing of the burden of resolution of numerous migration problems.

OSCE States have always recognized the importance of bilateral or multilateral agreements in several fields of their competence. Paragraph 5 of “The CSCE and Regional and Transfrontier Cooperation” chapter in the Helsinki Summit Declaration 1975 states: “Transfrontier cooperation should be as comprehensive as possible, promoting increased contacts at all levels, including contacts among persons sharing a common origin, cultural heritage and religious belief”. The commitment of the participating States to consider the conclusion of multilateral or bilateral consular conventions or other relevant agreements for the improvement of consular services is affirmed in paragraph D of the “Human contacts” document as an instrument to ease regulations concerning movement of citizens. The same commitment is reiterated in the Copenhagen document of 1990, where in paragraph 19 the participating States affirm that they undertake to implement fully and improve their commitments in the field of human contacts, including on a bilateral and multilateral basis.

In the Helsinki document of 1992 (Decisions, Chapter VI, paragraph 25), the participating States assert that they will continue through unilateral, bilateral and multilateral efforts to explore further avenues for more effective implementation of their relevant CSCE commitments, including those related to the protection and the creation of conditions for the promotion of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of national minorities, whereas in paragraph 45 they welcome and support unilateral, bilateral and multilateral efforts to ensure protection of and assistance to refugees and displaced persons with the aim of finding durable solutions.

Among the ODIHR Projects for the year 2003 there is one of “Cross-border Cooperation Through Collection of Migration Information” to assist the newly independent States of Eurasia in building national and regional capacities to collect and share migration-related information and to ensure greater respect for the human rights of migrants. The interested countries are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latria, Lithuania, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Analysis provided by: Antonella C. Attardo PhD (History of Law), Italy.