Written question asked by Douglas Alexander (Labour) on Monday, 16 May 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 18 May 2011. It was answered by Lord Hague of Richmond (Conservative) on Tuesday, 7 June 2011 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Belarus: Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is able to conduct an independent fact-finding mission to Belarus.

Answer: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has worked actively as part of a group of 14 Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) participating states to invoke the OSCE's Moscow Mechanism following the crack-down on the opposition in Belarus during and after the December 2010 elections. The Moscow Mechanism allows for the deployment of an independent, impartial fact-finding mission if one state, supported by at least nine others, ““considers that a particularly serious threat to the fulfilment of the provisions of the OSCE human dimension has arisen in another participating state””.The group appointed Emmanuel Decaux, Professor of International Law at the University of Paris, as its rapporteur. He began work on 6 May 2011. His report should be presented to the OSCE Permanent Council in mid June 2011.

Secondary information