Norway stress the importance of protecting and securing basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. We actively promote these principles, both within the OSCE as well as in other multilateral and bilateral fora. Within the OSCE, activities related to human rights and democratisation are normally discussed under the human dimension.
The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) is an annual meeting where OSCE participating States and partner states, as well as NGOs and other representatives for the civil society get together to exchange views on the human dimension situation within the OSCE area. The meeting takes place in Warsaw, Poland.
By supporting projects through the field missions and through support to the OSCE institutions (The Office for Democratic Institurions and Human Rights, the High Commissioner on National Minorities and the Representative on Freedom of the Media), Norway is one of the major financial contributors to the OSCE Human Dimension. In addition we are seconding election observers and experts to OSCE led operations in various parts of the OSCE-region.
Through the delegation in Vienna, Norway is actively promoting values and views in order to help shape an OSCE-policy that constantly is trying to improve, secure and respect the human rights standards to which all the 55 OSCE participating States have committed themselves.
Torture and the Death Penalty
Allthough the death penalty is still being exercised in some OSCE participating States that have not signed or ratified relevant international documents which prohibit this kind of punishment, Norway considers the death penalty to be cruel and inhuman. Norway is strongly opposed to the use of death penalty in all its forms and aims at its universal abolition.
Unfortunately, some OSCE participating States still execute children and mentally disabled persons. Furthermore, some OSCE participating States still sentence people to death based on evidence gained during the use of torture. Norway, together with likeminded countries such as the European Union, Canada and Switzerland aim at the universal abolition of torture and in particular to make the OSCE-area a torture free zone. The OSCE is involved in several important activities in that respect, such as training of police and prison officials, prison monitoring, court monitoring and training of local NGOs.