By Carina Ödebrink (MP, Sweden)
Op-ed originally published at European Interest on 24 June 2025
When the Helsinki Final Act was signed in 1975, it marked more than a diplomatic milestone – it reshaped our collective understanding of peace. The signatories recognized a radical but essential truth: that true peace is not simply the absence of war, nor the product of drawn borders. Peace, as enshrined in Helsinki, is built on respect for human rights, democratic governance, and the unwavering protection of fundamental freedoms.
For fifty years, these principles have served as the OSCE’s moral and political compass. They offered a vision of a Europe – and a broader region – where security would be anchored in dignity, mutual respect, and co-operation. But today, that vision is under siege. Not gradually or quietly, but in violent, visible, and devastating ways.
Across the OSCE region, we are witnessing a dangerous erosion, not only of democracy, but of the very idea that human life should be protected by law, by rights, and by truth. In some places, this erosion has turned into outright destruction.
In Ukraine, the brutal consequences of Russia’s illegal war have shattered lives and entire communities. As the war enters its fourth year, thousands of civilians have been killed, millions displaced, cities reduced to rubble. Reports of summary executions, torture, sexual violence, and the forced deportation of children tell us plainly: this is not just a war on a country – it is a war on a people. It is a war on the values we claim to stand for.
And in Gaza, the devastation continues. Nearly two years after the terrorist attack of 7 October 2023, the suffering remains relentless. Many hostages are still being held, with little known about their conditions or even whether they are alive, while tens of thousands of civilians have been killed – many of them children. Two million people have been displaced. Civilians lack food, water, and medicine. Schools, hospitals, homes – all are gone. The political failure to end this catastrophe is not just a policy failure. It is a moral one.
But these are only the most visible frontlines. Across our region, there is another war being waged – not with weapons, but with laws and lies. A quieter, insidious war on truth, on civil society, and on the fundamental freedoms that keep autocracy at bay.
In Russia and Belarus, state power has suffocated nearly all independent media. Journalists have been jailed, exiled, or worse. Civil society is labeled a threat. In Georgia, citizens protesting for their rights were met not with dialogue, but with intimidation and force. Migrants, LGBTI people, religious minorities, and others are scapegoated, criminalized, and pushed to society’s margins.
And women - too often the first to suffer and the last to be heard - bear the weight of these converging crises. They are underrepresented in peace processes, too often excluded from many decision-making and political processes across OSCE countries, vulnerable in displacement, and disproportionately harmed by poverty and violence. Migrants and asylum seekers risk their lives crossing seas and borders in search of safety – only to encounter detention, or, more tragically, death. In 2024 alone, thousands lost their lives attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.
These tragedies are not inevitable. They are the result of political decisions. Of silence when we should speak. Of cynicism where we need courage. Of the slow normalization of cruelty in our policies and indifference in our politics. This is the price of democratic backsliding. It is not theoretical. It is human. When democratic norms recede, people suffer. And in too many cases, they die.
That is why, as members of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly – elected representatives of nearly one billion people – we have a particular responsibility. We are the voice of the people. And we must speak not just for the powerful, but for the most vulnerable – those who have no platform, whose freedoms are stripped away in silence, whose lives are torn apart by tyranny and war.
Democracy and peace are lifelines, we know this. History has shown it. And still, we see governments across the OSCE region trying to redefine power without accountability. But no government can build sustainable security on the backs of the voiceless. Peace that excludes justice is no peace at all.
We must therefore act – not only in moments of global crisis, but in every moment where human rights are at risk. We must defend journalists, support civil society, uphold international law, and stand against the creeping normalization of repression. We must also invest in diplomacy, including in hopeful efforts like the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process – but never at the cost of human dignity.
As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, we face a defining question: do we still believe in its promise? If we do, then our task is not ceremonial, it is urgent. We must recommit democracy not as a slogan, but as a shield – for the vulnerable, the voiceless, the targeted, and the displaced. We must understand that freedom and fairness are not abstractions. They are what allow people to live, to hope, and to build a future.
Because where human rights die, people die. And where democracy ends, peace becomes impossible.
Carina Ödebrink is a Member of Parliament from Sweden. She serves as Rapporteur of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions, which will meet next week in Porto for the OSCE PA's 32nd Annual Session.
