Document details

Pioneer decision on safety of journalists in the preceding context

In: European Yearbook on Human Rights 2019
Philip Czech; Lisa Heschl; Karin Lukas; Manfred Nowak; Gerd Oberleitner (eds.)
Intersentia (2020), pp. 339-368

Institution of author: UNESCO

"This contribution singles out and seeks to analyse the most essential elements of the OSCE Ministerial Council Decision on Safety of Journalists, adopted in Milan on 7 December 2018. Those elements aim to create an enabling environment for the media, in particular, through the compliance with specific international obligations, recognition of certain functions of journalists, enumeration of the modern threats to their safety, including digital safety. Authors provide a background on the road to the decision within the OSCE, highlighting the main contradictions among its participating States, and put it in the context of other international commitments on media freedom and freedom of expression. As the first holistic OSCE document on freedom of the media, the decision significantly extends the current set of commitments by the participating States and may pave the way to a global instrument on the subject." (Abstract)