Guidelines on the use of Minority Languages in the Broadcast Media INTRODUCTION In its Helsinki Decisions of July 1992, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) established the position of High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) to be “an instrument of conflict prevention at the earliest possible stage”. This mandate was created largely in reaction to the situation in the former Yugoslavia which some feared would be repeated elsewhere in Europe, especially among the countries in transition to democracy, and could undermine the promise of peace and prosperity as envisaged in the Charter of Paris for a New Europe adopted by the Heads of State and Government in November 1990. The first High Commissioner, Mr. Max van der Stoel, took up his duties on 1 January 1993. Drawing on his considerable personal experience as a former Member of Parliament, Foreign Minister of The Netherlands, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and long-time human rights advocate, Mr. van der Stoel turned his attention to the many disputes between minorities and State authorities in Europe which had the potential, in his view, to escalate. He was succeeded on 1 July 2001 by the Swedish diplomat Ambassador Rolf Ekéus who was active in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) during the period of post-Communist transition and is well known for his work on arms control and disarmament, most particularly as Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) where he led the weapons inspectors between 1991 and 1997. Acting quietly through diplomatic means, the HCNM has through the years been involved in over a dozen States, including Albania, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia and Ukraine. Involvement has focused primarily on situations where persons belonging to national/ethnic groups constitute the numerical majority in one State but the numerical minority in another (often neighbouring) State, thus engaging the interest of governmental authorities in each State and constituting a potential source of inter-State tension if not conflict. Indeed, such tensions have defined much of European history. In addressing the substance of tensions involving national minorities, the HCNM approaches the issues as an independent, impartial and co-operative actor. While the HCNM is not a supervisory mechanism, he employs the international standards to which each State has agreed as his principal framework of analysis and the foundation of his specific recommendations. In this relation, it is important to recall the commitments undertaken by all OSCE participating States, in particular those of the 1990 Copenhagen Document of the Conference on the Human Dimension which, in 1