Daimler and Benz Foundation –
Daimler and Benz Foundation –
Daimler and Benz Foundation –

Ladenburg Roundtable

Funding line

With the “Ladenburg Roundtable” funding line, the Foundation offers a free space for interdisciplinary reflection on research topics of scientific and social relevance. It provides a venue on its premises where scientists and experts from practical disciplines can discuss a freely chosen topic of research. The roundtables are open to all disciplines; a Ladenburg Roundtable can lead to the issuing of a publication or initiation of a more extensive research project.

Years

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2026/4
2026/3
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2026/1
Ladenburg Roundtable in 2025

Quo vadis, OSCE? 50 years after the Helsinki Accords

Half a century after the signing of the Helsinki Accords, some 20 experts from the fields of science, diplomacy, and practice discussed the future of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) at the Ladenburg Roundtable of the Daimler and Benz Foundation on March 5 and 6, 2026. The conference centered on the question of what role the OSCE can still play today in view of the far-reaching changes to the European security order.

With their three “baskets” – security policy, economic cooperation, and human rights – the Helsinki Accords of 1975 laid an important foundation for confidence-building measures and the subsequent institutional development of today’s OSCE. Against this background, the discussions initially focused on the role of the organization in the context of current armed conflicts. It became clear that while the OSCE has numerous instruments at its disposal for conflict prevention and post-conflict stabilization, its scope for action is strongly dependent on the political will of the participating states.

A further focus of the conference was on the so-called “human dimension” of the OSCE – protection of human rights and national minorities. The topics under discussion included instruments for investigating serious breaches of human rights, such as the so-called “Moscow Mechanism” (the posting of independent experts to other member states) and possibilities for preventive conflict management. The participants also addressed new challenges for the organization – for example migration, environmental issues, and human trafficking – and its role within the European security architecture.

A paradoxical situation was repeatedly pointed out in the course of the discussions: Although political decision-making processes within the organization are increasingly being obstructed due to the stance of the Russian Federation and Belarus, many technical and operational forms of cooperation continue to function, for example in connection with confidence- and security-building measures and election observation. These often less visible forms of cooperation, in particular, could prove decisive in the long term when it comes to maintaining dialog formats and institutional expertise for a future European security order.

The Ladenburg Roundtable on the future role of the OSCE followed on from a conference in Potsdam staged by the Human Rights Center (MenschenRechtsZentrum) of the University of Potsdam in 2025 to mark the 80th anniversary of the United Nations Organization. This Roundtable thus constituted part of a larger field of research into the role of international organizations in the context of a fundamentally changed geopolitical framework.

Daimler and Benz Foundation –
Scientific management
Prof. Dr. Andreas Zimmermann University of Potsdam, Faculty of Law
Participating scientists
  • Dr. Lorenz Barth, Head of the OSCE Department, German Federal Foreign Office, Berlin
  • Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Benedek, University of Graz
  • Dr. Axel Berg, former Permanent Representative to the OSCE for the Federal Republic of Germany
  • Dr. Nadja Douglas, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin
  • Dr. Frank Evers, University of Hamburg
  • Prof. Dr. Rainer Hofmann, Goethe University Frankfurt
  • Dr. Carolyn Moser, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg
  • Prof. Dr. Thilo Marauhn, University of Giessen
  • Dr. Lia Neukirch, Goethe University Frankfurt
  • Prof. Dr. Anne Peters, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg
  • Florian Raunig, Permanent Representative to the OSCE for the Republic of Austria
  • Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Sándor-Szalay, University of Pécs, Hungary
  • Prof. Dr. Dominik Steiger, TU Dresden