UK backs ODIHR’s independence at the OSCE and presses Russia, Belarus and Georgia on human rights

The United Kingdom has reaffirmed its “unwavering” political and financial support for the OSCE’s human rights and elections institution, ODIHR, and called on participating states to protect its independence. In a statement to the Permanent Council in Vienna on 29 October, Ambassador Neil Holland also criticised Russia, Belarus and Georgia (UK statement to the OSCE).

Welcoming ODIHR Director Telalian back to the Permanent Council, Holland said the UK would provide additional financial support in the current financial year. He argued that ODIHR can only deliver its mandate if states safeguard its independence and give it adequate and predictable resources, and urged states to resource the OSCE’s autonomous institutions and field missions over the longer term.

Ukraine and Russia

Holland asked ODIHR to keep documenting what he called Russian violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in the temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine. He recalled that the UK had joined forty other members of the Council earlier this year in invoking the Moscow Mechanism over Russian indoctrination of Ukrainian children, and said London would keep pressing for the return of Ukrainian children and detained civilians held by Russia. He added that ODIHR can support Ukraine’s democratic future, including through election expertise, when Ukraine judges conditions to be right. The UK also condemned Russian attempts to undermine the OSCE human dimension and called for a return to the mandated Human Dimension Implementation meetings. Earlier UK statements in the same forum are covered in UK tells OSCE that Russia carried out 86 attacks on Ukraine’s energy system since the US ceasefire call, with more than 550,000 left without power.

Belarus, Georgia and civil society

The UK called on Belarus to release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally and to end transnational repression of civil society in exile. It urged Georgia to implement the 2026 Moscow Mechanism recommendations, saying that attempts to eliminate opposition actors through legal or administrative means raise serious concerns about Georgia’s compliance with its OSCE commitments.

Across the region, Holland said, states should redouble efforts on election observation, the rule of law, democratisation and non-discrimination, and should invite ODIHR in good time, facilitate its observation according to its established methodology and implement its recommendations. He described this month’s Human Dimension Conference in Warsaw as a demonstration of civil society’s indispensable role and voiced deep concern at attempted reprisals against participants.

He closed by quoting UN Special Rapporteur Katzarova’s remark in Warsaw that the 1975 Helsinki Final Act “did something radical – it put the human being inside the definition of security”, and said the UK stands by that definition.