Security Sector Reform and the future of the Code of Conduct

Abstract

In 1994, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) completed negotiations on the world’s first — and to this day, only — inter-governmentally agreed, and politically binding set of norms for civil-military relations, the Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security (CoC). Entering into force in January the following year, the Code was the most significant norm-setting exercise that the organisation had undertaken since elaborating the Helsinki Final Act (HFA) some two decades earlier. In addition to reaffirming the Helsinki Decalogue, it formulated a series of new standards for inter-state and intra-state behaviour. As a result, the Code would go on to play a key role in shaping the post-Cold War reform agenda in the Euro-Atlantic area. This article looks at the Code's legacy and its future, and makes a number of observations about its relationship with security sector reform (SSR). The Code and SSR, while different in terms of status, content and objectives, have several common and complementary elements. Indeed, the main argument of this article is that SSR could be used to develop an updated version of the Code. In particular, the author suggests that SSR can be a vehicle for reconceptualising and modernising the Code, and rendering it more pertinent to the security concerns of OSCE member states and their populations — and beyond, to communities in non-OSCE countries and regions. In the second section, the author will review the accomplishments of the Code. In the following section the author describes the main attributes of SSR and how they relate to the Code. The last section will focus on how, from an SSR perspective, the Code might be expanded upon and its implementation enhanced.