OSCE prefers when its diplomacy keeps it out of public's eye

In the complex architecture of pan-European multi-state organisations - a veritable alphabet soup of NATO, PfP, WEU, EU, Council of Europe, OECD and OSCE - it is perhaps not surprising that the latter, the Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe, does not spring readily to mind. The head of its co-ordination unit, Norway's ambassador, Mr Kim Travnik, told a meeting in Dublin recently: "The OSCE's stock in trade is preventive diplomacy. Preventive diplomacy when successful is not noticed; it is when it fails that you notice the consequences."

Yet the OSCE, born out of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, has played a significant role in Europe over the last 25 years and still plays an important part both in its preventive missions to trouble spots such as Bosnia, Kosovo, or Chechnya - it currently has 16 permanent missions in conflict zones - and as a forum for dialogue on security and other issues in Europe.

The OSCE is an important building block in European political/security architecture. Crucially, its membership of 54 states includes Russia and the former Soviet states as well as the US and Canada and has enabled it to play the part of honest broker where others such as NATO are seen as partisan.

The OSCE's concept of security has also been its strength. Security is seen as all-encompassing, from human rights to environmental issues. Its weakness is the non-binding nature of its decisions and the cumbersome process of decision-making by consensus. The organisation has its origins in Soviet attempts in the 1950s to create a forum for east-west dialogue. Support grew among neutrals and the non-aligned in the 1960s, but NATO finally agreed to take part only in 1969.

Helsinki 1973 launched the CSCE process, and the "Final Act", with its emphasis on shared commitments to human rights, would provide the inspiration for monitoring groups throughout Eastern Europe. The final declaration also affirmed the commitment of the member-states to respecting borders and the peaceful resolution of disputes, and set in train a series of confidence-building measures that helped to reduce tensions throughout Europe.

The fall of communism in the East led to a reappraisal of the role of the conference and agreement to institutionalise it in 1990 - hence the OSCE.