The commitment to simplify the procedures for exit form and entry into each OSCE State has been reaffirmed in numerous OSCE documents.

In the chapter “Human Contacts” of  the Helsinki 1975 document, special attention is paid to contacts on the basis of family ties: the participating States will deal positively with all applications for travel with the purpose of allowing persons to enter or leave their territory – temporarily and on a regular basis if desired – for visits to family members, without making any distinction as to the country of origin or destination. Requirements for travel documents and visas were to be established in this spirit. The preparation and issue of documents and visas are to be granted within reasonable time limits, cases of urgent necessity  - such as serious illness or death – to be given priority treatment. States commit to take such steps as may be necessary to ensure that the fees for official travel documents and visas are acceptable. States assert their intention to facilitate wider travel by their citizens for personal or professional reasons and to this end they intend gradually to simplify and make the procedures for exit and entry more flexible, to ease regulations concerning movement of citizens from the other participating States in their territory, with due regard to security requirements. If deemed necessary, they would attempt gradually to lower the fees for visas and other travel documents.

They also express their commitment to conclude multilateral or bilateral consular conventions or other relevant agreements or understandings for the improvement of arrangements to provide consular services, including legal and consular assistance.

The commitments expressed in Helsinki 1975 concerning traveling for family reasons are reaffirmed in the Concluding Document of Madrid 1983 (Questions relating to Security in Europe / Human Contacts), which includes the intention to gradually reduce – when necessary - fees charged in connection with these applications, including those for visas and passports, in order to bring them to a moderate level in relation to the average monthly income in the respective participating State.

In “Human Contacts” of the Concluding Document of Vienna 1989, the participating States commit (paragraph 4) to conduct regular reviews in order to ensure that all applications to travel in one of their territories based on the human contacts provisions of the Final Act and of the other CSCE documents are being dealt with in a manner consistent with those provisions and ensure that all documents necessary for these applications are easily accessible to the applicant. The documents will remain valid throughout the application procedure, and in case of a renewed application the documents already submitted will be taken into consideration. The participating States commit to give serious consideration to proposals for concluding agreements on the issuing of multiple entry visas and the reciprocal easing of visa processing formalities, and consider possibilities for the reciprocal abolition of entry visas on the basis of agreements between them.

In the Copenhagen 1990 document, participating States affirm that freer movement and contacts among their citizens are important in the context of the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms. They will ensure that their policies concerning entry into their territories are fully consistent with the aims set out in the relevant provisions of the Final Act, the Madrid Concluding Document and the Vienna Concluding Document, and undertake to implement fully and improve present commitments in the field of human contacts, including on a bilateral and multilateral basis. In this context they will strive to implement the procedures for entry into their territories, including the issuing of visas and passport and customs control, in good faith and without unjustified delay. Where necessary, they will shorten the waiting time for visa decisions, as well as simplify practices and reduce administrative requirements for visa applications; they will ensure that visa applications are processed as expeditiously as possible in order, inter alia, to take due account of important family, personal or professional considerations, especially in cases of an urgent, humanitarian nature and endeavor, where necessary, to reduce fees charged in connection with visa applications to the lowest possible level.

Competent border and migrant officials of the participating States is also a major OSCE commitment in the field of the external borders and in several cases governments request OSCE’s intervention to develop an adequate training.

Following a request by the Georgian Government, in December 1999 the OSCE Mission to Georgia was mandated to observe and report on movements across the Chechen segment of the Georgian-Russian Federation border. The Ingush and the Dagestan segments of the Georgian-Russian border were added to the mandate in December 2001 and January 2003, respectively. Since the first day of deployment, OSCE border monitors, who are unarmed and have no policing functions, have been accompanied by Georgian Border Guards. Security of the OSCE monitors is an indispensable element of the whole operation.

OSCE and ODHIR organize several seminars for border and migration officials in diverse OSCE States, where there is a specific need for well-educated and professional border officials who would promote institutional reform. The courses usually include communication, computer sciences, border crossing control, border protection - in some cases even practical work at checkpoints – but also human rights training. Such courses where held, among other countries, in Ketrzyn (Poland), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) and Ashgabad (Turkmenistan). One of the several ODHIR projects in the field of Training for border and migration officials there is the “Assistance to Border Service Reform”-program for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

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