Date: Thursday 25 November, 1.00-2.15pm, (lunch available from 12.45pm)

Venue: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Room (off Westminster Hall), Houses of Parliament, Westminster

Speakers:

• Jacqueline Hale, Senior Policy Analyst, Caucasus and Central Asia, Open Society Institute - Brussels
• HE Kairat Abusseitov, Ambassador of Kazakhstan
• Dr Bhavna Dave, Chair of the Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus, SOAS
• Saule Mektepbayeva, Regional Director, Central Asia, Penal Reform International

Chair: Lord Anderson of Swansea

As world leaders prepare to meet in Astana (1-2 December) for the first OSCE summit of the millennium, hard questions need to be asked about the future of the institution. This new FPC seminar will look back at Kazakhstan's chairmanship of the OSCE, in particular to its performance against the Madrid human rights commitments its leaders made on being offered this global leadership role. Kazakhstan's chairmanship provides the backdrop for a wider debate about future of the OSCE, to try and identify what role it should play in the modern world. In particular the seminar will explore the future of the OSCE's human dimension, in light of attempts to undermine the importance and independence of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the troubling picture of declining human rights standards in many OSCE member states.

If you would like to attend, please RSVP by email to: events@fpc.org.uk

Download Kazakhstan and the Future of the OSCE (100 kilobyte PDF)