Within a recent meeting the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) agreed on intensified cooperation.

During its mid-term meeting that took place from 7 to 8 May 2012 in Hong Kong, the IOI Board of Directors took decisions on several applications for individual, associate and institutional membership. Welcoming the new members to the IOI family the General Secretariat presents the main facts and figures of each new member ending today with the Ombudsman the Canary Islands.

Only one day after the entry into force of the new legal foundations of the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) Chairwoman Terezija Stoisits and fellow AOB members Peter Kostelka and Gertrude Brinek met with the recently appointed six Commission Chairpersons for a first working session.

The Ombudsman for Bermuda presented the institution’s 7^th Annual Report covering the year 2011. The Annual Report 2011 is available on the Website of the Ombudsman for Bermuda.

As of 1 July 2012 Ombudswoman Terezija Stoisits has taken over the chairmanship of the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) from Getrude Brinek who held the position since July 2011.

From 1 July 2012 the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) exerts its new mandate that from now on also includes the protection and promotion of human rights making the AOB the “human rights house of the Republic of Austria”.

The 10^th International Ombudsman Conference will be held in Wellington, New Zealand from 12 to 16 November 2012. We would like to remind you that the early registration deadline for the Conference is nearly here. The deadline has been extended Monday 2nd July 2012.  Please note that the registration server will be down from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon (New Zealand time)  so you will not be able to register during this period. 

In the framework of a joint Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, and Stirling University research project on complaints as a driver of innovation and service improvement in public services the two universities are currently conducting a global scan for interesting examples which could be included in a series of case studies which will be published by NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts).